Suneil Anand, who ran the production banner Navketan Films founded by his father, actor Dev Anand, has died at the age of 70 in London after suffering a heart attack.
His family confirmed the news through a statement issued by his niece, Gina Narang.
Suneil died on July 26, at the same London hospital where Dev Anand himself had passed away in 2011.
He is survived by his mother, 94-year-old actress Kalpana Kartik, and his sister, Devika, both based in Ooty.
After his own acting career did not take off, Suneil took charge of Navketan Films’ business and production operations, stepping into a custodial role for one of Hindi cinema’s oldest production houses.
Navketan was founded in 1949 by Dev Anand along with his brother Chetan Anand, and grew into one of the most respected banners in the Hindi film industry, a legacy Suneil was responsible for maintaining in recent decades.
Dev Anand himself was one of Hindi cinema’s most celebrated leading men, known for films such as Guide, Jewel Thief, CID and Hare Rama Hare Krishna over a six-decade career, before his death in 2011 at the age of 88.
Suneil had appeared in a small number of films earlier in his career before shifting his focus to the production side of the family business.
Dev Anand received the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 2002, honours reflecting a career in Indian cinema — and, by extension, in the business built around it — that began in the 1940s.
Navketan’s back catalogue, including films directed by Dev Anand’s brother Vijay Anand such as Guide and Jewel Thief, represents a rare case of a nearly eight-decade-old Indian production house whose intellectual property and legacy business Suneil had, in recent years, taken direct responsibility for managing, alongside the studio’s Mumbai operations.
(Image: Press Information Bureau (GODL-India))