Veteran Indian film star MN Nambiar has died at home in the southern city of Madras (Chennai) after a brief illness.
Nambiar, who was 89, was frequently cast as a villain during his career which spanned six decades.
He made his screen debut in 1935 and went on to act in more than 1,000 films in Tamil, Hindi and several other languages.
Nambiar was deeply religious and loved to keep fit. His discipline made him a role model for many Indian actors.
Correspondents say he was also free from the scandals and rumours which are common in the Indian film industry.

Bollywood star Salman Khan seems to be quite impressed with his colleague Akshay Kumar’s growth as an actor over the years.
On being asked who has impressed him by his acting skills in the recent past, Salman said: “Akshay has impressed me by his acting skills in the recent past. I think he (Akshay) is the only actor who has really grown as an actor.”
Salman was speaking to reporters Monday at the promotional event of his forthcoming release “Yuvvraaj”, which also stars Anil Kapoor, Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan.
About the film, he said: “It is about brothers played by Anil, Zayed and me. The film is about the manipulations of the brothers to get the ancestral property. I play the second brother Deven, who tries to get a part of his ancestral property to fulfill the conditions laid down by his to-be father-in-law to marry his daughter (Katrina Kaif).”
Salman has teamed up with director-producer Subhash Ghai for the first time for the film. He said that Ghai had approached him earlier too.
“Subhashji had approached me before, but I did not accept the offer because I thought I could not do justice to the roles. But, I accepted this film because it is the story of three brothers and I could relate to the emotions.

Bollywood’s ace filmmaker Karan Johar seems unperturbed by the scarcity of clothes and the profusion of gay jokes in his production venture “Dostana” that releases Friday. He says the film would not offend anybody.
“It’s fun and new. We’ve made sure not to offend any group or community. I’d never make a film that would offend anybody. ‘Dostana’ has a great look and it’s a clean happy watch,” Karan told IANS.
Directed by Tarun Mansukhani, it stars Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham and Priyanka Chopra.
“The chemistry among Abhishek, John and Priyanka is fantastic. As for the gay jokes, I think it’s time for everyone to wake up to reality. I had gay jokes in ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’ and no one was offended,” Karan added.
He also clarified that there is no rivalry between him and Aditya Chopra and that his “My Name Is Khan” wasn’t delayed because of Yash Raj Films’ “Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi”.
“Far from it. Adi’s film releases December 12 and I start immediately after. Yes, I did delay a bit for him initially. But it was a very minor delay for a month. If he asked me, I’d delay my film a year for him. Not only that, Yash Raj Films distributes our films. So where’s the question of competition between us?”
As for Karan’s next directorial venture, he clears some misconceptions.
“‘My Name Is Khan’ has nothing to do with terrorism. It has Shah Rukh and Kajol in the lead. More than anything else, it is an emotional drama. It’s more about the absence of humanism than politics. I’m not fighting for any cause. But at the end of the day cinema is a reflection of the times.
“In the 1970s and 80s, political upheaval was huge. In the new millennium, international terrorism is as huge a problem as global warming. But since global warming doesn’t make dramatic viewing, terrorists are definitely the antagonist of our times. I’ve seen ‘A Wednesday’, which I absolutely loved. I’d love to meet and congratulate the director (Neeraj Pandey). In fact, I wrote a whole blog about the film.”
Any mention of the film being about Islamic identity puts Karan on the defensive.
“At its heart ‘My Name Is Khan’ is a love story. At its soul it makes a social statement and at its core it’s a tale of the triumph of the human spirit. My writer Shibani Bathija and I come from the same emotional head-space. Anyway, it’s too early to talk about the film.”
Shibani has just delivered a dud called “Kidnap”.
“I haven’t seen ‘Kidnap’. I was down with viral fever when it was released. So I can’t comment on the film. But I can say ‘My Name Is Khan’ is Shibani’s baby all the way. She has given two years of her life to researching Shah Rukh’s character. I’d be just executing her vision.
“As for her work in other films, every creative person falters. You need to move on. Even I’ve made mistakes. But that doesn’t stop me from taking risks. I think I took a big risk with ‘Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna’. I don’t think any other director has made a Rs.50 crore (Rs.500 million) film on infidelity.”
Karan recently returned from location-hunting in London and Los Angeles. Call him a seasoned traveller and he retorts: “I’m a traveller for all seasons. We’re shooting ‘My Name Is Khan’ in San Francisco and LA. With ‘Kabhi Alvida…’ and now ‘My Name Is Khan’, I want the bubble to burst about my bubblegum cinema.”
Is it true that he and Aditya are making Hindi versions of the same film “Arlington Road”?
“Look, the film that Rensil D’Silva is directing for me and the one that Kabeer Khan is doing for Adi both have terrorism at the background. So there would be similarities. Rensil’s film and Kabeer’s film have terrorism as their base but different themes. Both Rensil and Kabeer have worked hard on their script,” said Karan.

He is one of the most successful and popular playback singers in Bollywood, but it is acting that gives Sonu Nigam greater happiness.
“I admit my films did not do well, but my work was appreciated. Acting gave me great happiness. Not a single critic wrote bad things about my performance. I think it is better to be appreciated in a flop than to be a part of a hit film where your work is not recognised,” Sonu told IANS.
Sonu said he still gets acting offers, but can’t accept them.
“I am busy with my singing assignments which include shows, playback singing and private albums. Right now I am busy with my shows abroad and also a few albums. So, I have put aside my acting offers. But I am open for it and will perhaps do a project a year later.”
In the recent past, he had shows in Birmingham, London and Manchester in Britain and in various cities in the UAE.
Sonu, who has won 33 awards for playback singing including the Filmfare award, says initially music directors were hesitant to work with him.
“I was never the first choice for the best compositions. Music directors used to give all the good compositions to singers like Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan and Abhijeet. I was only offered qawali or songs that needed a voice like Rafi,” said Nigam, who has recorded the highest number of songs of Mohammad Rafi in T-Series’s “Rafi Ki Yaadein” series.
Today he is singing for top league actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan, among others.
Sonu, who started his career as a playback singer with Gulshan Kumar’s “Aaja Meri Jaan”, also clarified that Kumar was not his mentor.
“Gulshan Kumar gave me the much-needed break, but he was not responsible for shaping my career.”
However, Sonu admits Gulshan Kumar gave him the chance to survive in the playback world.

Director: Saurabh Kabra
Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Urmila Matondkar, Arjun Rampal, Malaika Arora, Ashish Chowdhary, Neha Oberoi
Rating: **

You have to salute the Sanjay Dutt-Urmila Matondkar dinner on the dock in the second-half of this socially relevant in parts, emotionally elevating morality tale where Sanjay’s gloriously goofy and endearing character proposes to the object of his adoration.
The sequence shows great emotional control, comic timing and dramatic subtlety. It builds up splendidly into a spiral of implosive romance. And Urmila skilfully weaves coquettishness into contrivance to show how a lady can manipulate a man without meaning any harm.
The above sequence shows debutant director Saurabh Kabra’s control of the medium. Alas, this control isn’t evident everywhere. This valid tale about loan recovery scampers all over the place, quite like those poor debtors being chased by the loan sharks.
At a time when the world faces severe economic recession, “EMI” sounds a topical alarm bell. Tragically the narration doesn’t follow the golden rule of survival. It stumbles at times in trying to over-reach, moving the body of the plot into positions that damages the narration.
Miraculously every time the four set of characters stumble, director Kabra catches them and puts them back into place. You only wish the characters, lived-in and feeling rather than faking the emotions, would have been located into a more virile and vibrant environment.
Quite clearly Sanjay’s role, personality and performance are a carry-over from the ‘Munnabhai’ films.
The postures assumed by the plot don’t quite match the sincerity of the actors, all of whom perform with gusto.
Arjun Rampal and, surprisingly, Ashish Chaudhary lend a contagious verve to their parts without converting their characters into clownish caricatures. And a word for the seasoned Kulbhushan Kharbanda. Does he ever disappoint?
While the guys take over the show, Urmila and Malaika Arora provide the glamour. But Malaika’s item songs seem forced into the plot.
The sense of segmented satirical momentum is kept afloat through the performances. The dialogues by Nitin Raikwar and T. Govind Rajan capture the desperate energy and the underlining humour of a generation that’s rapidly losing the plot.
Blessedly, the film manages to stay on the right track. Never overwhelming in its social message on middle-class extravagance, but managing to make the ends meet from the beginning to the end.

Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan, who is currently shooting with wife Aishwarya in Kerala for Mani Ratnam’s “Raavan”, has fallen ill, revealed father Amitabh.
Amitabh wrote on his blog that the morning of Wednesday was very eventful for him.
“As I step out of bed in the early hours of today (Wednesday), Obama wins, B.R. Chopra passes away and Aishwarya calls that Abhishek is down with shivering and high fever. All three events come across simultaneously within seconds,” Amitabh wrote on his blog www.bigb.bigadda.com late Wednesday.
The actor was squashed between repeated attempts to check up on Abhishek’s health and between “intrusions of the media seeking reactions to Chopra ’saheb’”.
“I want to get through to Abhishek, media is worried as they have a deadline,” he added.
Amitabh wrote that Abhishek might be suffering in Kerala, “a distant location”, due to “rough conditions, rain and dirt”.
The actor expressed his irritation about the situation when questions about Chopra’s death changed to queries over Abhishek’s health.
A worried father, Amitabh managed to arrange a conference call between Abhishek and a doctor, who prescribed medicines to Bachchan junior.

After flaunting her curves and earning rave reviews for her performance in “Fashion”, Priyanka Chopra is all set to show off her svelte figure in swimsuits and beachwear in forthcoming film “Dostana”.
She says she had to work really hard to get the right shape for the romantic comedy.
“For ‘Fashion’, I had to put on six kilos and later had to shed chip by chip as the character progressed in the film. My body structure in ‘Dostana’ is more toned than in ‘Fashion’ as it is a completely beach film. I’ve worked very hard on my body,” Priyanka told IANS in an interview.
After a hectic schedule with six films in a row this year, Priyanka said shooting for “Dostana” with Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham was like a vacation and a rejuvenating experience for her.
Entirely shot in Miami, Florida, “Dostana” comes as a breather for the actress whose flagging career was given a new lease of life with “Fashion” after a series of duds - “Love Story 2050″, “God Tussi Great Ho”, “Chamku” and “Drona”.
“‘Dostana’ was like a vacation. It was so much fun. We were in Miami for two months and I was so fresh and rested when I came back. It was like a really relaxed outdoor and (I had a) great time because everybody got along well with each other,” Priyanka said.
Produced by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions and directed by Tarun Mansukhani, the romantic comedy will release Nov 14.
Priyanka plays a fashion journalist who shares her apartment with Abhishek and John. The two dupe her to rent her apartment on the pretext of being a gay couple.
“John, Abhishek and I are best friends in the film who do everything together. It’s a romantic comedy and a fun film about what happens in their lives,” the actress said.
Asked if she had any apprehensions working with a debutant director, specially after a string of flops this year, Priyanka said: “Tarun is a fabulous friend of mine and an incredible director. When I first met him, I was a little scared.
“I am a kind of person who asks a lot of questions. I test directors. I like asking and Tarun knew the answer to every question I asked. He blew my mind with his confidence and the commitment he had towards the film. By the end of the film, he’s become a really close friend of mine and I admire him as a filmmaker.”
The former Miss World also says: “I definitely want to try singing. I might start with, maybe, a song in one of my films but I’m not sure when. But I definitely want to do it.”
The actress said she admired the blogging rage among celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan and Ram Gopal Varma, but added that she couldn’t take to it due to lack of time.
“It’s such a great way to get closer to your fans. But I don’t know how they find time to blog because I hardly sleep for more than four hours. I really want to do it at some point because Karan (Johar) was also telling me it’s great… may be in a while when my schedule eases a little bit.
“I’ve had six releases this year, so it’s been insane for me.”
Priyanka is currently shooting for Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Kaminay” and Ashutosh Gowariker’s “What’s Your Raashee”, which she calls a “very complicated and difficult romantic comedy”.
She also has sequels to Farhan Akhtar’s “Don - The Chase Begins Again” and Goldie Behl’s “Drona”, apart from an item number opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Priyadarshan’s “Billo Barber”.

Cast: Sonu Sood, Eesha Koppikhar, Alok Nath, Smita Jaykar, Vishal Malhotra
Director: Kaushik Ghatak
Rating: * 1/2

Nobility as a quality in cinema seems almost the hallmark of Sooraj Barjatya’s cinema. Specially during these times of stress cynicism and violence, any film that doesn’t belch out venomous fumes is worthy of applause.
But wait. Before we cheer “Ek Vivaah… Aisa Bhi” for walking the straight and narrow road, let’s be warned. The route taken by the narration looks like a tepid and technically shoddy facsimile of Anil Ganguly’s “Tapasya”, which was produced by Barjatya, and more recently, the Barjatya-directed “Vivah” that won extra points for its elegant and fluent simplicity of narration.
Director Kaushik Ghatak takes us through Barjatya’s joint-family system. Yes, even the infamous ‘gaajar ka halwa’ (sweet dish made out of shredded carrot) makes its mouth-watering appearance during the first wedding that rolls out at the start.
Yup, the film begins and ends with elaborate weddings replete with the whole cast plus sundry junior artists dressed in garish pinks, mauves and greens prancing to the sound of festivities.
But somewhere this prolonged music-video ‘Vivaah…’ lacks the graceful zing of the other Shahid Kapur-Amrita Rao film two years ago which had enough meals and morning walks to make our digestive system feel balanced out.
“Ek Vivaah…” is lopsided in its fervent festivity. The first-half where a romance grows between two small town singers Sonu Sood and Eesha Koppikhar creaks with monotonous semi-classical songs.
The music composed by Ravindra Jain is simply awful. Jain had done the songs and music in the original film “Tapasya”. One still remembers Kishore Kumar’s theme song “Jo raah chuni tuney” with affection.
The songs and music in “Ek Vivaah… Aisa Bhi” are dreadfully dull. The film gets by on the strength of Bengali litterateur Ashapurna Devi’s powerful story of a self-willed woman who sacrifices marriage to look after her siblings.
Parts of the second-half capture the emotional aroma of the original story. Specially effective is the relationship between the spinster and her devoted soulmate who refuses to marry any other girl.
Suchitra Sen and Ashok Kumar shared a similar platonic rapport in Asit Sen’s “Mamta”. And so did Raakhee Gulzar and Parikshit Sahni in “Tapasya”. They had the spirit.
Eesha and Sonu are sincere, but they lack the gravity and ingrained wisdom and dignity required to portray lives that go beyond self interest.
What works for this “Vivaah…” is its intrinsic integrity. At a time when everyone is making films that either go for the guffaw or head for the libido, here’s a film that tackles very basic traditional values and the feelings underlining the colourful festivities related to the Hindu wedding. The language is often so old fashioned that it borders on the archaic.