Tamil filmmaker and actor RNR Manohar, who had been undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Chennai after contacting Covid-19, died at around 8.30 am on Wednesday, publicity manager Johnson confirmed to Silverscreen India.
The late actor, who was in his 50s, was being treated for the virus for the past 20 days, he added.
Manohar began his career as an assistant director under filmmaker KS Ravikumar. He assisted the latter in films such as Band Master and Suriyan Chandran, both of which were released in 1993. Manohar wrote the dialogues for the IV Sasi directorial Kolangal (1995), starring Jayaram and Kushboo. He also served as a writer for a handful of films, including the political action film Thennavan (2003), starring Vijayakanth, and the R Parthiban-starrer Pudhumai Pithan (1998).
Manohar made his directorial debut with Maasilamani (2009), which featured actors Nakul and Sunaina in the lead roles. After this, he wrote and directed the action film Vellore Maavattam in 2010.
Meanwhile, he also acted in a number of films and shared screen space with actors like Silambarasan in Achcham Enbadhu Madamaiyada (2016), Ajith Kumar in Yennai Arindhaal (2015), Vedalam (2016), and Viswasam (2019), and Arya in Teddy (2021).
In a career spanning over two decades in the Tamil film industry, Manohar featured as an actor in over 40 films.
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He was last seen in the Tamil anthology 4Sorry, directed by filmmaker Sakthivel Selvakumar. Speaking to Silverscreen India, Sakthivel said, “He was a very energetic and hard-working person. He would put in long hours at work even at his age. We used to shoot from 6 am to 2 am at night.”
“He was a director’s artist. Despite being a filmmaker himself, he never interfered with the direction department when working as an actor. He was a very dedicated actor and was keen on understanding the characterisation of his role,” the filmmaker added.
Manohar is survived by his wife and daughter.