Nana Patekar, the actor whose raspy voice and fearless opinions made him one of Hindi cinema’s most distinctive presences, died on Thursday at his home in Goa. He was 75. The cause was a cardiac arrest.
A star who crossed party lines
Patekar’s death closes a career that went beyond the screen. The Hindustan Times reports that for decades he hosted senior leaders from Maharashtra’s rival political parties at Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at his Mumbai home and later at his farm near Pune.
His willingness to speak his mind made him rare in public life. During 1995-1999, when Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray was at his peak, Patekar publicly rebuked him for disparaging Marathi literary figures. “Balasaheb, you have earned an image in our hearts and even you don’t have a right to destroy it,” he said, according to the report. The friendship survived, and Patekar even tried to broker peace between Thackeray and a journalist whose criticism of the Sena leadership had led to an attack.
After Thackeray’s death in 2012, Patekar said the calls from Matoshree stopped and his connection with that home ended.
Service and straight talk
Off screen, Patekar supported Baba Amte’s Anandwan project and later portrayed Prakash Amte in an acclaimed biographical film about a doctor running hospitals, schools and an orphanage in tribal Gadchiroli. In 2015 he co-founded the Naam Foundation with Marathi actor Makarand Anaspure to help distressed farmers and back water conservation under the state’s Jalyukta Shivar scheme.
He also spoke for Mumbai’s street hawkers in 2017 during an agitation led by Raj Thackeray’s MNS. Patekar asked why the civic body had allowed hawkers for years without giving them a designated space. Raj Thackeray mocked him, but later defended him when an actor made a sexual harassment allegation, saying Patekar might talk nonsense at times but would not do such a thing.
The moments that defined him
- Publicly confronted Balasaheb Thackeray, yet the friendship endured.
- Founded the Naam Foundation in 2015 for farmer relief and water conservation.
- Questioned then CM Eknath Shinde and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis in 2022 over inaction against corrupt politicians.
- In May 2025, called Shinde “spotless,” angering the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena.
At that 2022 public event, Patekar contrasted former chief minister YB Chavan, who reportedly had just ₹25,000 in his bank account when he died, with corporators who he said earned crores within a year of being elected. His direct questions put the two leaders on the spot.
For Hindi cinema fans, Patekar remains an actor of sharp, intense roles: unpredictable, blunt and hard to ignore.
Source: Hindustan Times