Film News Anandan passed away this morning at his residence in T Nagar. He was 88 He is survived by two sons and two daughter.
One of his sons and a noted PRO Diamond Babu said that Anandan was admitted to a private hospital in Mylapore, a week ago due to some age-related issues.
He was brought to his house yesterday and his end came early this morning.
Though he was referred as a film historian, Anandan was more of a curator who had statistic details about every Tamil movie, its artistes and technicians, since the silent era days.
Anandan had many firsts to his credit. He was the first to click a photograph of Nataraja Mudaliar, who directed several silent films in 1931 in Chennai and Mumbai. He was the first PRO in the Tamil film industry.
Recalls Diamond Babu, ‘my father was a photographer-cum-journalist. He would have seen no less than 7000 films in his career that spanned over 50 years’.
His collections were nationalised by Tamilnadu government in 2002 and they are preserved at the Taramani Film Institute.
