Cinema news historian Film News Anandan is no more

Film News Anandan, who was a moving encyclopedia on anything cinema, had breathed his last at his residence in Chennai this morning. He was 88 and is said to have been admitted last week in a hospital due to age related issues but had been discharged later.

For anything on cinema, he was the ‘go to’ man who had all the details at his fingertips. He got the name Film News as a prefix in 1954 when he joined a magazine as a photographer covering film news. He was also said to be the PRO for the former CM MGR when he was in the field. He had written many articles for the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce.

He had a huge collection of photos and he had prepared 100-film albums of the stars of those days – Sivaji Ganesan, MGR, K.R. Vijaya, Jayalalithaa, Sivakumar and Kamal Haasan. His funeral is said to happen tomorrow, says his son, PRO Diamond Babu.