Goldie Era Ends: Actor, Director, Film-Maker Vijay Anand Is Dead

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The film-maker was put on life support system on Sunday. His end came at 6:45 a.m.

He also acted in films like Kora Kagaz and Hindustan Ki Kasam and the television series Tehqiqat.

He a suffered a massive heart attack. This was Vijay Anand’s second heart attack and his condition had remained critical since he was admitted to hospital. He was put on a life supporting system and had been put on a pace-maker.

Doctors said Anand had been suggested a bypass surgery earlier, but the filmmaker had not undergone one so far, reportedly on advise of `tantriks’.

His body was brought to his second floor flat in the metropolitan building at Pali hall in suburban Bandra. Then it was taken to Navketan Studio for `public darshan’ for sometime.

The funeral was to take place in the evening in a nearby crematorium .

Vijay Anand is survived by wife Sushma and son Vaibhav.

Among the stream of mourners at his house were his brother Dev Anand, his wife Kalpana Kartik and son Suneil Anand.

Film personalities, who visited his house, were filmmakers Shabana Azmi, Yash Johar, Amit Khanna, Madhur Bhandarkar and many others.

"Vijay was a great inspiration to directors. His command over the medium was tremendous. I still haven't seen a film to match Guide, said Prem Chopra, actor.

"I have lost a brother," said Director Madhur Bhandarkar.

LONG CAREER: Vijay Anand was the youngest of the four Anand siblings and took up to films like his elder brothers, Chetan and Dev Anand. He was a distinguished filmmaker and between 1957-1982, directed several movies that went on to become classics.

His most famous hits include Nau do gyarah, Kala Bazaar, Tere Ghar ke Saamne, Guide, Teesri Manzil, Jewel Thief, Blackmail, Chupa Rustum and Ram Balram. Vijay also directed the box office hit, Teesri Manzil, outside his home banner, Navketan Productions.

Apart from donning the director's hat, Goldie also faced the camera as an actor in Kora Kagaz, Agra Road, Kala Bazar, Haqueeqat, Tere Mere Sapne and Chor Chor.

Guide remains amongst Vijay Anand's most successful films, which he directed in 1965. The film starred his brother, Dev Anand and won several awards.

Apart from his role as a filmmaker, Vijay played an active role in various capacities in the industry. He was chief of censor board a few years back—a post he stepped down from after a run-in with the government.

Goldie had also planned an ambitious project to launch a channel, Lamhas, which would produce quality television programmes.

The actor-director was currently working on a film, Jana na dil se door—in memory of his late brother Chetan—starring Dev and Indrani Mukherjee. The film is slated to release next month.

Vijay Anand's claim to fame was his proposal that the screening of pornographic films be granted legal status in designated theatres around the country in order to satiate the growing need for adult entertainment and bolster revenue generation.

When he was the chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification he made that revolutionary recommendation. His tenure as the country's chief film censor was understandably cut short soon after.

Coming from Vijay Anand, the controversial suggestion was not surprise. Both as a professional and a man of ideas, Vijay Anand was always way ahead of his time. He produced, wrote, directed and edited a few of popular Hindi cinema's finest films. He was an accomplished actor too.

However, what he will be remembered for are many of the ground rules that he laid down for succeeding generations of directors to use as benchmarks.

Vijay Anand was one of commercial Mumbai cinema's first modern directors who blended a strong sense of narrative with an unfailing grasp of visual and editing techniques. That rare attribute made him a director who rarely went wrong when he was at the peak of his prowess.

Even when a film made by him failed to woo the masses -the box office failure of the exquisitely crafted and profoundly soulful Tere Mere Sapne left him in a trough that he never quite managed to climb out of - critical acclaim never eluded him.

The reason was obvious: Vijay Anand's cinema possessed a quality that set it well apart from anything that his contemporaries could deliver. Not only was he was a fabulous storyteller, he also had a way with song picturisations and pacing patterns that placed him in a league that could match the ones that belonged to the likes of Guru Dutt and Raj Kapoor.

After scripting the Chetan Anand's widely acclaimed Taxi Driver, he debuted as a director in 1957 with Nau Do Gyarah. The youngest of the remarkable Anand brothers helped Dev Anand shape his timeless on-screen persona. He went on to write and direct an entire complement of the most definitive Dev Anand starrers - Kala Bazaar, Tere Ghar Ke Saamne, Guide, Jewel Thief, Johnny Mera Naam and Tere Mere Sapne - creating a director-actor partnership that remains unparalleled in sheer consistency and quality.

He was one of commercial Mumbai cinema's first modern directors who blended a strong sense of narrative with an unfailing grasp of visual and editing techniques. That rare attribute made him a director who rarely went wrong when he was at the peak of his prowess.

Vijay Anand's writing and filmmaking style reflected an international vision, borrowing elements from the pages of Western literature (his adaptation of A.J. Cronin's The Citadel, Tere Mere Sapne, was a wonderful specimen of his evolved craftsmanship), the spirit of film noir (witness Taxi Driver), the humanism of Frank Capra (he reworked It Happened One Night as Nau Do Gyarah), and touches of neo-realism (a trait that could be traced back to elder brother Chetan Anand's epochal Neecha Nagar).

Yet, every film that he made bore the unmistakable stamp of the Vijay Anand originality.

The sheer range of genres that he could straddle was proof of that - Vijay Anand was as much at ease with the emotionally complex, individualistic Tere Mere Sapne as he was with the gloriously entertaining Jewel Thief and Johnny Mera Naam.

He could pull of an epic drama like Guide with as much panache as he could mount a film about a man on the margins of society (Kala Bazaar). He was filmmaker who could spearheaded the globalisation of Hindi cinema had he been born a few decades later. Crossover films would have come naturally to a man who knew his craft inside out.

The great tragedy of his life was represented by the rapid, inexorable changes that swept through the industry in the 1980s as hordes of traders swarmed out the old school creators. A disillusioned Vijay Anand went into semi-retirement by the late '80s, never again endeavouring to reclaim his rightful space in the industry. The loss was as much Hindi cinema's as it was his.

For Vijay Anand's steadfast refusal to make formula films his stock in trade was an anticipation of the multiplex era at least a decade and half before it actually occurred. Sadly, he had to leave the stage when that era was only just beginning.