Rama Naidu: Movie mogul who modernised film-making in the south

Rama Naidu (1936-2015)

Dada Saheb Phalke Award winner and veteran film producer Daggubati Ramanaidu died of cancer in Hyderabad on Wednesday. He was 78. He has produced 139 films in all official languages of India, earning him the moniker “Movie Mogul.”

He has the distinction of working with some of the most popular Indian film stars, including N.T. Rama Rao, A. Nageswara Rao, Sivaji Ganesan, Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Sreedevi, Jayapradha, Madhuri Dixit and Sushmita Sen, in a career spanning almost six decades. He has produced former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s 100th film, Thirumaangalyam , in 1974.

Mr. Ramanaidu was born on June 6, 1936, into a well-to-do family of farmers. Having taken up farming initially and overseeing the operations of a family-owned rice mill, he soon became unhappy with the vocation and decided to migrate to the then Madras to set up a brick factory.

In 1963, he got an offer to partner as a film producer and set up a production company, Suresh Productions. He produced

Anuragam , which was directed by G. Ramineedu, starring Bhanumathi and Jaggaiah and followed it up with Ramudu Bheemudu , which had N.T. Rama Rao in the lead.

After holding fort for two decades, Mr. Ramanaidu, heeding to appeals from former Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh M. Channa Reddy and N.T. Rama Rao in 1986, was among those who helped lay the foundation for the growth of the Telugu film industry in Hyderabad.

He was among the first to set up a full-fledged production facility, the Rama Naidu Studios, in Jubilee Hills in 1989 and established the Rama Naidu Charitable Trust in 1991. He was conferred the prestigious Raghupathi Venkaiah Award in 2006, Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 2009, and the Padma Bhushan in 2013.

He is survived by wife Rajeshwari, daughter Lakshmi and sons Daggubati Suresh, a well-known producer, and Daggubati Venkatesh, a popular Telugu actor.

Great legacy: Kamal

“It would be unjust to introduce Ramanaidu gaaru to the next generation as a Tamil or Telugu film producer. He is much more than that. National cinema sprang from Chennai and D. Ramanaidu was one of the doyens of it. He has left a great legacy behind and I would like to say thank you,” said actor Kamal Haasan.

This article has been for factual error.

Correction

>>A sentence in “Movie mogul who modernised film-making in the south” (Feb. 19, 2015) read: “He [Ramanaidu] is survived by wife Lakshmi and ….” Actually, Lakshmi is his daughter’s name.