Tamil Cinema Icon, AVM Saravanan, Passes Away At 86

CHENNAI: M Saravanan, the soft-spoken steward of AVM Productions who nurtured Tamil cinema through more than half a century of changes while helping shape careers of its greatest stars like Kamal Haasan, Sivaji Ganesan, Vyjayanthimala and Sivakumar, died Thursday in Chennai of age-related ailments. He was 86.Widely known as the “gentleman producer” of Kollywood, M Saravanan, along with his brothers Kumaran, Murugan, and Balasubramanian, oversaw AVM Productions — India’s oldest film studio — for more than 60 years, producing a string of box-office hits in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi. The studio was founded by his father AV Meiyappan in 1945.Saravanan’s name first appeared in the credits of Mamiyar Mechina Marumagal (1959), a remake of a Marathi film. The movie didn’t do well, but his next, Deiva Piravi, starring Sivaji Ganesan, became a success and was later remade in Hindi as Bindya (starring Balraj Sahni).Over the decades, Saravanan supervised a scintillating catalogue that came to define Tamil cinema. These included Kalathur Kannamma (which introduced Kamal Haasan in 1960), Shivaji Ganesan’s Pava Mannippu (1961), MGR’s Anbe Vaa (1966), Rajinikanth’s Paayum Puli (1983).Tributes poured in on Thursday. Chief minister MK Stalin said Saravanan’s AVM Production had a long bond with the Dravidian movement’s cinematic journey. “The bond grew into a relationship of familial affection…. When I visited the AVM Heritage Museum in May 2023, he warmly reminisced about those cherished memories,” Stalin recalled.Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi described Saravanan’s death as a “significant loss to the cultural and creative landscape” of the state.Saravanan is survived by his son MS Guhan, daughter Usha and his brothers.