Bengaluru: Senior Sandalwood actor, director Kashinath passed away on Thursday after brief period of illness at Bengaluru Sri Shankar Cancer Hospital.

As per sources, he was admitted to the hospital two days ago, but he failed to respond to the treatment given to him.

Kashinath had acted in 43 films, produced 11 Kannada, one Hindi and one Telugu films. However, most of his films came to be billed off as ‘vulgar’ films because of the double meaning dialogues and slapstick comedy. This earned him a lot of criticism, even to the extent that some held him responsible for decline in quality of Kannada films. However, his fans believe that Kashinath dared to touch upon subjects that were considered a taboo in the society and hence his films were looked at from ‘vulgarity’ point of view.

Hailing from Kundapur in Udupi district, Kashinath made his debut  as a director with a comedy, “Aparoopada Athitigalu” in 1976. He followed it up with the highly acclaimed suspense thriller “Aparachita”. Anubhava and Ajagajanthara, Avale Nanna Hendthi are some of his famous flicks. His later films bordered on the bawdy. Kashinath’s latest flick was the movie Chowka, released in the year 2017 in which his role as a father received much appreciation. Kashinath also introduced many new talents to the industry who went on to become famous as actors, directors and technicians as well. Actor Upendra, director Sunil Kumar Desai, music director V Manohar are some names to mention.

He is survived by his wife and two sons.