Nana Patekar Dies at 75 After Cardiac Arrest

Around half past two in the morning, from his residence in Dona Paula, a coastal stretch about seven kilometres from Panaji, Nana Patekar messaged a friend. He was not feeling well. The hour was late enough that the message sat unseen for a time. Dr Shekhar Salkar later set out what the hospital could reconstruct of those first minutes.

“As far as we can recollect, he called someone at around 2:30 am. He sent a message to his friend saying that he was not feeling well...” Dr Salkar said. Accounts of the exact minute vary slightly across what was reported to the doctors, some placing the contact nearer half past three. What did not vary was the content. The friend, once he saw it, went straight to the apartment and reached it around four.

By then the change was already under way. “By then, Nana was sweating and gradually becoming unconscious...” Dr Salkar said. A caretaker was living at the residence with him. While the friend was there, the caretaker left to seek hospital help. An ambulance was dispatched toward the flat.

The medical team that reached the apartment found him unresponsive. They began CPR at the residence and kept the effort going as they moved him into the ambulance and along the short run to Manipal Hospital, about ten minutes away. Doctors there continued the resuscitation without pause.

“Our favourite actor Nana Patekar was brought dead to our hospital and was declared dead at 5.20 am today,” Dr Shekhar Salkar said. “It was like he was brought dead.”

He was 75. The date was October 8, 2026. His son, Malhar Patekar, confirmed the death. The cause was cardiac arrest. “He was a known cardiac patient and was on medication, as far as we have been told,” Dr Salkar said. A medico-legal case was registered. A post-mortem was ordered at Goa Medical College, Bambolim, to establish the exact cause.

“Despite 45 minutes of continuous CPR, he could not be revived,” Dr Salkar said.

Born Vishwanath Patekar in Maharashtra in 1951, he began in theatre and made his Hindi film debut with Gaman in 1978. Smaller parts in Hindi and Marathi films filled the years that followed. A role in Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay! drew notice beyond the trade. Then came Parinda and the gangster Anna. The performance took a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award and made the name familiar far past the film world. Lines delivered in his rasping voice were repeated in school corridors and tea stalls.

He directed and starred in Prahaar. Krantiveer earned the National Film Award for Best Actor. Agni Sakshi added another National Award. Three National Film Awards marked the career. Between those peaks the range held: Khamoshi, Ab Tak Chhappan, Raajneeti. Welcome cast him as the comic gangster Uday Shetty and showed the same force could land laughs. The Marathi film Natsamrat, in which he played a retired stage actor, stood as a late high point. Across nearly five decades he moved between serious cinema and mainstream work in both Hindi and Marathi. In 2013 he received the Padma Shri.

Beyond the craft the public figure was built on the same blunt register. He criticised power openly and without apology. Farmers’ welfare sat close to him for years. In 2015, with actor Makarand Anaspure, he co-founded the Naam Foundation. Its work focused on farmer welfare and water conservation across Maharashtra.

In 2018 that record turned contested. Actress Tanushree Dutta alleged sexual harassment by Patekar on the set of Horn ‘OK’ Pleassss in 2008, saying he had touched her inappropriately while filming a song sequence in Mumbai and had pushed for intimate dance steps despite her objections. The allegation helped spark India’s #MeToo movement. Patekar denied the allegations and called them false. Mumbai Police filed a closure report in 2019 for insufficient evidence. Dutta opposed the report and challenged the investigation.

After his death she spoke to fans on Instagram Live. “Best thing, he died by his own hands. If he has died also I am a little bit doubtful...” Tanushree Dutta said.

Hema Malini had missed his call by only a week. “He rang a few days back. He spoke to me also. Just about a week back also I had one call, I think. But somehow I missed because I was travelling. So, when I heard today, I was shocked,” she said. They had never shared a film. Mutual respect had held anyway. She called him an institution for acting.

The tributes that followed named the same force in different registers. Narendra Modi spoke of intensity, individuality and unmistakable presence, and of a contribution that ran through Hindi and Marathi cinema. Anupam Kher said he would miss the warmth and called him one of the finest actors and human beings. Shah Rukh Khan remembered a mentor, a teacher, a critic and a friend, and a void left in cinema and in hearts. Akshay Kumar, who had worked opposite him in Welcome, pointed to the voice, the intensity and the honesty that needed little ornament to hold an audience. Riteish Deshmukh said the news landed as if a truck had hit him, and called him an actor par excellence, incomparable in the place he had carved.

The body left Goa that evening by air ambulance, bound for Pune. Last rites were performed with full state honours at the farmhouse in Donje. Malhar Patekar lit the pyre. Chants of Nana Amar Rahe rose over the farewell.

Frames still waited. Shakti Shalini, directed by Aditya Sarpotdar for Maddock Films’ horror-comedy universe, cast him; he had completed his portions and the film was expected in March 2027. He had wanted to watch the final cut and return for dubbing. Eetha, Laxman Utekar’s biographical drama drawn from the life of Maharashtra folk performer Vithabai Narayangaonkar, was set for release on December 4, 2026. The Confession of Mary, from Ananth Narayan Mahadevan, gave him Father Benedict, a Catholic priest accused of murder in a story taken from Kerala’s 1966 Madatharuvi case. The film had been selected for the Toronto International Film Festival. Co-producer Subhash Kale said Patekar was expected back in Mumbai to dub a single line shortly before he died. Kuku Ki Kundali, a romantic comedy by Sharan Sharma, still carried no date.

That line would not be recorded.