Suneil Anand, Dev Anand’s only son, passes away at 70

Suneil Anand, the only son of veteran Bollywood actor Dev Anand, has passed away at the age of 70 after suffering a heart attack in London.

The family confirmed his death through a statement issued by his niece, Gina Narang.

He died on July 26, in the same London hospital where his father, Dev Anand, had passed away in 2011.

Suneil is survived by his mother, 94-year-old actress Kalpana Kartik, and his sister, Devika, who both live in Ooty.

When his own acting career did not take off, Suneil took charge of running Navketan Films, the production banner founded by his father.

Navketan Films was set up in 1949 by Dev Anand and his brother Chetan Anand, and grew into one of the most respected banners in Hindi cinema.

Dev Anand was among Hindi cinema’s most iconic leading men, remembered for films including Guide, Jewel Thief, CID and Hare Rama Hare Krishna over a six-decade career, before he died in 2011 at 88.

Suneil had featured in a handful of films himself earlier on, before moving away from acting to oversee the family’s production business.

Dev Anand received the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 2002 in recognition of his contribution to Indian cinema, adding to a long list of honours collected over a career that began in the 1940s.

Navketan’s body of work also includes films directed by Vijay Anand, Dev Anand’s other brother, among them Guide and Jewel Thief, both made under the banner and now considered classics of Hindi cinema. Suneil had, in recent years, been involved in managing and preserving this catalogue, keeping the family’s long association with Indian film production going even as the industry shifted considerably around it.

Guide, released in 1965, is frequently cited as one of the most acclaimed films to emerge from Navketan’s decades of production work, and remains a reference point in discussions of the studio’s legacy.

(Image: Press Information Bureau (GODL-India))