Legendary film producer D Rama Naidu passes away

Multilingual filmmaker D Rama Naidu, who made memorable films like 'Ramudu-Bheemudu', 'Srikrishna Tulabharam' and 'Premnagar', died here today following protracted illness. He was 78.

The Dada Saheb Phalke Award-winner was unwell for some time and the end came this afternoon, family sources said. He had a brief stint in politics when he won the Lok Sabha seat in 1999 on a Telugu Desham ticket. A prolific producer of over 130 films in different languages like Telugu, Tamil and Hindi, Rama Naidu was born in Karamchedu in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh in 1936. He made his debut in cinema with 1963 film 'Anuragam' followed by the superhit 'Ramudu-Bheemudu' starring legendary N T Rama Rao in 1964.

Apart from Telugu films, he produced movies in Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi and Bhojpuri. His most famous Hindi film was Rajesh Khanna-Hema Malini starrer 'Premnagar' followed by 'Dildar', 'Bandish', 'Anari', 'Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain' and 'Prem Qaidi'. Some of his other well known films were 'Srikrishna Tulabharam' (which won a national award for its lead actress Saratha), 'Preminchu' 'Ramudu Bheemudu', 'Bobbili Raja', 'Ahana Pellanta', 'Andhra Vaibhavam', 'Kathanayakudu' in Telegu and 'Asukh', 'Sudhu Ekbar Bolo' in Bengali.

Rama Naidu worked with artists like NTR, A Nageswara Rao, Sivaji Ganesan, Pandari Bai, Jamuna, Padmini, Sobhan Babu, Kamal Haasan, Jayaprada, Chiranjeevi, Rajinikanth, Rajesh Khanna, Hema Malini, Rekha, Jeetendra and Sridevi. He built a great track record in the industry for introducing numerous film directors as well as artistes and technicians. Prominent artistes introduced by him include Venkatesh, Harish, Vanisri, Aryan Rajesh, Tabu, Khushboo, Allari Naresh and Malasree.

Rama Naidu set up studios, recording, preview and dubbing theatres and laboratories in Hyderabad and Vishakapatnam. His children are producer Suresh Babu Daggubati, actor Venkatesh Daggubati and daughter Daggubati Lakshmi. The filmmaker was awarded with Indian cinema's highest honour Dada Saheb Phalke in 2009 and the Padma Bhushan in 2012 for his contribution to cinema.