Nana Patekar is no more as he reportedly died due to a cardiac arrest at the age of 75. He was a rare actor that made a transistion from a character artist to a very successful hero. He made an entry into films in the late 70's doing some Marathi films but first came to attention with the B R Chopra superhit film, AAJ KI AWAZM where he played the antagonist.

Then came the sleeper Hit ANKUSH in 1986 and these films gave him a good fan following due to his dialogue delivery with the public in Maharashtra. It all erupted with the blockbuster film TIRANGAA which actually made Nana Patekar a full fledged star. This was followed by more Blockbusters like KRANTIVEER and AGNI SAKSHI. At that point of time, he was probably the biggest star in Maharashtra as his films fetched a huge premium here sometimes taking the prices ahead of the biggest stars.

The 93-97 period was huge for Nana Patekar as barring KHAMOSHI (1996), all his films succeeded. The films were TIRANGAA (1993), KRANTIVEER (1994), HUM DONO (1995), AGNI SAKSHI (1996), YESHWANT (1997) and GHULAM-E-MUSTHAFA (1997). Barring HUM DONO, all the other films were bonafide Hit films in Maharashtra and a lot was down to his star pull in the state.

As makers tried to cash in this success, it became very repetitive which led to the downfall as the dialogues which were organic in the likes of TIRANGAA and KRANTIVEER became very forced which led to films not faring well. Yet, a decade later, he found huge success with WELCOME (2007) with an insanely popular character and arguably, this was his most famous character. Its unlikely that someone so unconventional in terms of the male lead will ever reach the status that Nana Patekar did in the 90's.