Suneil Anand, only son of Dev Anand, dies at 70 in London

Suneil Anand, the only son of legendary actor Dev Anand, has died at the age of 70 in London after suffering a heart attack.

His family confirmed the news in a statement issued by his niece, Gina Narang.

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

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

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

Navketan was founded in 1949 by Dev Anand and his brother Chetan Anand, and went on to become one of the most respected names in Hindi cinema production.

Dev Anand was among Hindi cinema’s most celebrated leading men, known for films such as Guide, Jewel Thief, CID and Hare Rama Hare Krishna over a six-decade career, before his death in 2011 at the age of 88.

Suneil had appeared in a small number of films earlier in his life before stepping back from acting to run the family production house.

Dev Anand received the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 2002, recognising a career in Indian cinema that began in the 1940s and produced some of Hindi film’s most enduring hits.

Navketan’s catalogue also includes films directed by Dev Anand’s brother Vijay Anand, among them Guide and Jewel Thief, both produced under the banner and now viewed as classics of Hindi cinema. In recent years, Suneil had taken on the work of managing and preserving this catalogue, keeping the family’s decades-old association with Indian film production going through a changing industry.

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))