Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Sunday expressed her condolences over the death of veteran Tamil film director A Jagannathan. She recalled her long years of association with the director when she was an actress, and heaped praise on him. A veteran of around 50 films, he passed away on Sunday morning after a prolonged illness.
“I have known Jagannathan from the days he was assistant director to P Neelakandan. He worked as assistant director on Kavalkaran, Kanavan, En Annan and Kannan En Kadhalan among other films, that MGR and I acted together in,” said the CM.
“He got along very well with everyone, he was a good man. His death is a great loss to the Tamil film industry,” she added. Jagannathan cut his teeth in the Tamil film industry as assistant director to Prakash Rao. He later assisted director P Neelakandan in 13 films. Most of these 13 movies starred matinee idol MGR. He made his directorial debut in 1973, with Mani Payal, starring AVM Rajan, Thengai Srinivasan and Jayanthi. He is also among the handful of directors to have worked with four of Tamil cinema’s biggest idols — MGR, Sivaji Ganesan, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. Among his widely known films are MGR’s Idayakani and Sivaji Ganesan’s Vellai Roja, apart from Rajinikanth’s Moondru Mugam and Kamal Haasan’s Kadhal Parisu. He garnered critical acclaim for a 14-episode TV mini-series he directed that aired on Doordarshan titled Tamizh Thatha, on the life and works of Tamil literary giant U Ve Swaminatha Iyer.