Malaysian-born Sri Lankan-Australian singer and entertainer known for his sex appeal, kaftans and deep voice. Despite his regal onstage presence and nickname “Prince of Suave,” the charismatic and exotic Kamahl was not born — as popular myth would have it — a Malayan prince (the supposed “Son of the Lotus King,”) but the son of humble parents in Kuala Lumpur, capital of the then British colony of Malaya. Kamahl’s father, a chief clerk in the engineering dept. of Malaya Railways had migrated from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to Malaya in 1919. From 1936-1938 the young Kamahl lived with his mother in her hometown of Jaffna in Ceylon, then returning to KL where he grew up until attending school at King’s College in Adelaide, South Australia, 1953-1955.
At King’s, Kamahl excelled as a cricket-player, his friends calling him “Camel.” He began singing in the city’s coffee bars while attending the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide, upgrading to the Lido club and then his first TV spot as a guest act on the opening night of Adelaide Tonight, on 17 October 1959, soon becoming a regular on the show. On 11 February 1961 he debuted on national TV on Melbourne’s BP Super Show and despite an initially lacklustre performance, was declared “A New Song Star” by TV Times. A month later he appeared more dashingly confident during a Sydney telecast.
From 1962-1964 Kamahl lived in a Sydney hotel then with the family of Rupert Murdoch who had given him his first big break. While performing on the nightclub circuit he met Sahodra Tikaram (b. 26 June 1940 in Fiji), an Indian woman training as a nurse. Although both Hindu, the fair-complexioned Sahodra and mahogany-dark Kamahl came from different cultural backgrounds with different native languages and castes. They married on 29 June 1966 at the Sydney registry office and Kamahl took Australian citizenship on 9 March 1967. Their son Rajan (now a music producer) was born 25 May 1969 and daughter Rani (now a pop singer) in the morning of 17 September 1971, both in Sydney.
Kamahl’s first album was A Voice to Remember, released in October 1967 and his first single, “The Impossible Dream” followed in April 1968. He played an Aboriginal Australian killer and captive in the film, Journey Out of Darkness (1967), and appeared in an episode of television’s The Rovers in 1969, but declared his forte to be singing, not acting. Kamahl’s 2nd album, Dreams of Gold (1969), went Gold along with 21 of his other recordings through the 1970s, by which time he was visiting London annually and appearing on TV shows such as The Harry Secombe Show, The Golden Slot and Stars on Sunday. On 27 April 1975 Kamahl appeared solo at the London Palladium, dressed in a gold lamé caftan with crimson velvet trimmings.
Later that night after his stellar Palladium performance Kamahl learned that he was a million dollars in debt to an Australian bank, so he took to touring endlessly in Australia and overseas until he paid off the costs of his earlier lavish lifestyle. While his album, Kamahl Live at Carnegie Hall (1976), went gold in Australia he achieved less stardom in the USA, although Bob Hope once asked him in a private quip if it was true that he had “three balls” — an allusion to the depth of Kamahl’s voice. Always outspoken about racism, Kamahl was publicly outraged when his requests to join the line-up for Australia’s royal Bicentennial Concert in 1988 were rejected. Kamahl later that year served as an honorary ambassador for Brisbane Expo. In 1994 he received his A.M. (Member of the Order of Australia) for services to the community and entertainment industry. He was appointed N.S.W. Father of the Year in 1998.
In 2009, he accused the Australian TV show Hey Hey It’s Saturday of having treated him in a way that smacked of racism, during his past guest appearances.
Link to Wikipedia biography