Filmmaker Rama Naidu cremated

Hyderabad, Feb 19: Multilingual filmmaker and Dada Saheb Phalke Award recipient D Rama Naidu was cremated on Thursday with full state honours.

Rama Naidu's elder son D Suresh Babu, a leading producer, lit the funeral pyre at Ramanaidu Studios here, accompanied by his younger brother and popular hero Venkatesh.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao paid homage to the veteran producer earlier in the day.

Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor, veteran actress Sridevi, Bollywood producer Boney Kapoor, former MP and actress Jayaprada as well as a large number of celebrities offered tributes to Rama Naidu during the day.

Rama Naidu, a filmmaker, who made memorable films like 'Ramudu-Bheemudu', 'Srikrishna Tulabharam' and 'Premnagar', passed away here yesterday after a protracted illness. He was 78.

The Dadasaheb Phalke Award recipient had battled cancer for months and the end came around 2.30 pm yesterday, according to his actor son Venkatesh.

Rama Naidu, who holds the Guinness Book Record for producing maximum number of films in Indian cinema, made a brief foray into politics when he won the Lok Sabha seat from Bapatla in 1999 on a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) ticket. Born into a family of agriculturists in Prakasam district in coastal Andhra in 1936, Rama Naidu passion for films and made his first film 'Anuragam' in 1963.

He went on to make the Telugu superhit 'Ramudu-Bheemudu' with the late N T Rama Rao.

His film production company Suresh Productions made about 155 films in 15 different languages like Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi and Bhojpuri.

His famous Hindi films include the Rajesh Khanna-Hema Malini starrer 'Premnagar' followed by 'Dildar', 'Bandish', 'Anari', 'Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain' and 'Prem Qaidi'.

PTI