Revered Indian filmmaker Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, whose work spanned the 1957 Telugu-language classic “Mayabazar” and this year’s musical “Sing Geetham,” died Oct. 3 in Chennai following a period of ill health. Rao made some 60 features in the Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi languages, and moved between farce, fantasy, mythology and science fiction. He also composed music for some of his films and took occasional acting roles.
It was his first film as director in a decade. Rao trained under director K.V. Reddy, assisting on “Mayabazar” (1957) and “Jagadeka Veeruni Katha” (1961).
He stepped behind the camera himself in 1972 with the Telugu drama “Neethi Nijayithi.” His Tamil film “Dikkatra Parvathi” (1974) took the Indian National Film Award for best Tamil feature. Rao’s partnership with the actor Kamal Haasan began with the 1979 Telugu comedy “Sommokadidhi Sokokadidhi,” in which Haasan played two parts, and continued with “Raja Paarvai” (1981), Haasan’s 100th film and his first as producer. Rao wrote and co-produced the comedy, and nobody in it utters a line.
Haasan plays a broke graduate who passes himself off as a rich man at a hotel, with Amala Akkineni co-starring. Because there was no dialogue to translate, actors could be drawn from across India, and the film went on to win the Indian National Film Award for best popular film providing wholesome entertainment. Their Tamil run continued with “Apoorva Sagodharargal” (1989), where Haasan took three roles, among them a circus performer with dwarfism, and Indian comedy classic “Michael Madana Kama Rajan” (1990), where Haasan had four roles.
They reteamed on “Magalir Mattum” and, in 2005, “Mumbai Xpress.” That Tamil turn followed Rao’s long stint in Kannada with Rajkumar. The star led seven Rao films, beginning with “Haalu Jenu” in 1982, and four of those were later redone in Telugu. In 1988, Rajkumar announced that he planned to step away from acting for a while, and that steered the director toward Tamil projects.
At home in Telugu, Rao cast dancer Sudha Chandran in “Mayuri” (1985), a dramatization of her own comeback after losing a leg. It collected 14 Nandi Awards, the state honors of Andhra Pradesh, a record haul. With Nandamuri Balakrishna he made “Aditya 369” (1991), a time-travel adventure, and the folklore fantasy “Bhairava Dweepam” (1994), which earned Rao the Nandi for best director.
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