NEW DELHI: Anna Dey, who has sung evergreen songs like Yeh raat bheegi bheegi and Pyaar hua iqraar hua has won the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2007.
President Pratibha Patil will confer the award on the 90-year-old singer on October 21, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry announced on Wednesday.
Manna Dey is the 55th winner of the coveted honour the government bestows every year for lifetime achievement in cinema.
The award, instituted in memory of the ‘Father of Indian cinema’, has been won in the past by the likes of Satyajit Ray, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shyam Benegal, Dev Anand, Asha Bhosle, Ashok Kumar and Mrinal Sen.
This year it carries a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh, a Swaran Kamal trophy and a shawl.
Manna Dey began his playback career with the 1942 film Tamanna, singing a duet with Suraiya to music set by his uncle Krishan Chandra Dey.
Over the next decades he recorded over 3,500 songs, including hits like Laga chuneri mein daag, Ek chatur naar, Kasme wade pyaar wafa, Zindagi kaisi hai pehli, Yeh dosti hum nahin todenge, Aye mere pyare watan and Poocho na kaise maine rain bitayi.
Manna Dey has been honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 2005 and Padma Shri in 1971.
He has sung all sorts of songs — numbers based on classical music, qawalis and ghazals, Rabindra Sangeet, cheerful romantic songs and sad melodies.
Apart from Hindi and Bengali, he has sung in several Indian languages, including at least two numbers in Malayalam.
In 1953, Manna Dey married Sulochana Kumaran from Kerala.
He sang for movies like ‘Awaara’, ‘Do Beegha Zameen’, ‘Parineeta’, ‘Boot Polish’, ‘Shree 420’, ‘Zanzeer’, ‘Bawarchi’, ‘Mera Naam Joker’, ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’ and ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’.