He has won two Kerala State Film Awards, three Best Actor Filmfare Awards and a Tamil Nadu State Film Award. In 2011, he received the Padma Shri from the Government of India for his contribution to the arts.
Jayaram was born into a Tamil Iyer family as the second of three children of Subramaniyam and Thankam in Kumbakonam, Tamilnadu, on December 10, 1965. His mother tongue is Tamil.
His father is from a Tamil Iyyer family in Kerala and his mother is from Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.
He had an older brother, Venkit Ram (died at a young age) and a younger sister, Manjula. He was educated at the Government Boys High School in Perumbavoor. He holds a BA in Economics from Sree Sankara College Kalady.
He became a medical representative shortly after the university and later joined the Kalabhavan Institute and learned and performed mimicry on a number of stages, which paved his way to the Malayalam film industry . Malayalam writer Malayattoor Ramakrishnan is Jayaram's maternal uncle.
After high school, he joined Kalabhavan, a professional mimicry troupe in Kochi. At the age of 22, he was introduced to the world of cinema by screenwriter and filmmaker Padmarajan who gave Jayaram his launch pad with the 1988 film Aparan. Jayaram then starred in Moonnam Pakkam (1988) and Innale (1989) of Padmarajan. Padmarajan became his mentor in his film career until his death in January 1991.
He became one of the Superstars of the Malayalam film industry through the film Meleparambil Aanveedu (1993) which was directed by Rajasenan. The film was a commercial success and lasted more than 200 days in theaters.
He is known to have played in Kamal's films in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in such films as Pradeshika Varthakal (1989), Peruvannapurathe Visheshangal (1989), and Shubha Yathra (1990) (all written by Ranjith). played with his wife Parvathy.
He then made a scripted film by Ranjith with the story of Jagathy Sreekumar and directed by Viji Thampi named Witness (1988). He teamed up with Viji Thampi and Ranjith in Nanma Niranjavan Srinivasan (1990), where he plays a policeman in search of a criminal played by Mukesh. In the early '90s, he starred in Bharathan's Keli (1991) and Malootty |
