Anant Nag brings Dadasaheb Phalke to Kannada

In a big honour for Kannada cinema, veteran actor Anant Nag became the second artist from the State to win the Dadasaheb Phalke Award on Wednesday. The recognition comes a year after the actor was conferred with the Padma Bhushan.

After Dr. Rajkumar received the honour in 1995, no Kannada actor had bagged the country’s highest award in the field of cinema.

Anant Nag, who debuted with the 1973 Kannada film Sankalpa , has acted in more than 300 movies for over five decades in both mainstream and parallel cinema, with more than 250 of his performances being in Kannada. The actor, born Anant Nagarkatte in 1948 in Uttara Kannada district, began his acting stint with Kannada, Marathi, Hindi and Konkani plays, and has a rich background in theatre shaped largely in Mumbai.