Suneil Anand, the son of legendary actor Dev Anand, has died at the age of 70 in London following a heart attack.
The family confirmed his death in a statement issued by his niece, Gina Narang.
He died on July 26, at 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 live in Ooty.
After his acting career did not take off, Suneil took over running Navketan Films, the production banner founded by his father.
Navketan was established in 1949 by Dev Anand and his brother Chetan Anand, and became one of the most respected names in Hindi cinema production.
Dev Anand was regarded as one of 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 career before stepping away from acting to focus on the family production house.
Dev Anand was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Dada Saheb Phalke Award in 2002 for his contribution to Indian cinema, part of a career that began in the 1940s.
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 regarded as classics of Hindi cinema. Suneil had, in recent years, taken on the work of managing and preserving this catalogue, keeping the family’s long association with Indian film production going even as the industry around it changed considerably.
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))
