P. Neelakantan

Palaniyaandi Neelakantan (2 October 1916 Villupuram – 3 September 1992 Chennai) was a Tamil film director, who was active for nearly four decades. He was born at Villupuram, Tamil Nadu. He graduated to movies from stage play. His play "Naam Iruvar" was brought by movie mogul Avichi Meiyappa Chettiar and made into a film in 1947. Then he wrote the dialogues for films like "Vedala Ulagam" in 1948. His directorial debut was with "Oru Iravu" in (1951), the dialogue for which was written by C. N. Annadurai. Two films that made him well-known are ALS productions "Ambikapadi" (1957) and "Thirudadhe" (1961). He also has directed movies in Kannada and Sinhalese "Suneetha" and "Sujage Rahase". Neelakantan was mainly associated with creating M. G. Ramachandran's (MGR) movie persona. Between "Chakravarthi Thirumagal" in 1957 and "Needhikku Thalaivanangu" in 1976, Neelakantan directed altogether 17 of MGR's movies.