Pioneering cinema chronicler passes away

Born in Chennai, Anandan has witnessed a lot of Tamil cinema’s history when it was in the making, right from the time movies switched from the silent era to talkies (1935), to the current digital era. He has been a change-maker himself. He ‘invented’ the film PRO career by approaching MGR and requesting that film PROs be included in the title credits of films, and MGR obliged by adding his name to his landmark film Nadodi Mannan (1958). The honour was something Anandan had earned. 

Later, he went on to work as a PRO in over 1,500 films. “In those days no one was interested in doing things differently. 

Movie makers used to hire agents and give them the publicity posters. I was the one who first approached producers like RM Veerappan, assuring them of publicity in a professional manner,” said Anandan during one of our interactions.  

Ask him about any movie, any director or what Rajesh Khanna ate when he visited Chennai, and Anandan pulled out accurate details from his memory—accurate because he would whip out a clipping from his huge archive and the details were there, in print, as proof. 

“People trusted me,” Anandhan told DTNext recently, while recollecting the marriage of actress Padmini. She was planning a quiet wedding in Kerala, away from cameras. Anandhan decided that the historic moment had to be chronicled and followed her. 

“I did not even know the venue, but I landed at the venue somehow. However, the marriage was over and she had left with her husband. Her sister Ragini saw me, bundled me in a car and took me to their house. It was late in the evening. But a smiling Padmini posed for me in her wedding finery, and introduced me to her husband as ‘Anandhan, a very good man,” Anandhan said. 

His other memory is of Jayalalithaa as a young, leading actress. “She was shooting at AVM and I walked in when she was resting between shots. She was seated in a chair reading a book. In those days only the hero and heroine commanded chairs. She got up and gave me her seat,” he recalled. 

Anandan, who documented the industry achievers in a well researched book on Tamil cinema industry, who was later conferred the Kalaimamani award.  “My only regret is my failing eye-sight,” he said. “ I am unable to read what is written about cinema,” he said a few months ago.  The industry will miss this remarkable man who chronicled Tamil cinema’s past and present.