විජය කුමාරතුංග
32 songs performed
Vijaya Kumaratunga (also spelled Vijaya Kumarathunga or Vijaya Kumaranatunga), විජය කුමාරතුංග, was a Sri Lankan film actor, playback singer, and politician, and one of the most popular figures Sinhala cinema has produced. Born on 9 October 1945 and assassinated on 16 February 1988, he is remembered as much for the songs tied to his films, above all the romantic ballads of Ganga Addara (ගඟ අද්දර), as for the screen roles that made him a household name.
Born Kovilage Anton Vijaya Kumaratunga, he entered Sinhala cinema in the late 1960s and built a career that ran across roughly two decades and more than a hundred films. By the 1980s he was the most bankable leading man of his generation, winning the Sarasaviya Most Popular Actor award year after year. Alongside acting he recorded over a hundred songs, many of them written for the films he starred in.
Kumaratunga’s best loved recordings come from his film work. The soundtrack of Ganga Addara (1980) gave him a cluster of enduring numbers, and several of them are among the most requested songs associated with his name. His vocal style was warm and unhurried, suited to the longing and tenderness these songs carry.
Listeners searching for Vijaya Kumarathunga songs and lyrics most often look for the Ganga Addara pieces and his other romantic recordings, which Lyrics-lk presents in Sinhala script with English transliteration and translation.
Kumaratunga married Chandrika Bandaranaike in 1978, and in 1984 he founded the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party, campaigning for peace during the civil conflict. He was shot dead outside his Colombo home in February 1988 at the age of 42. His funeral was the first to be broadcast live on Sri Lankan television, a measure of how widely he was mourned.
Decades on, Vijaya Kumaranatunga remains a beloved name to Sri Lankan listeners at home and in the diaspora, and his film songs continue to be played, sung, and searched for.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Vijaya Kumarathunga.