Premier Studio in Mysuru fades into history

Premier Studio, one of the prestigious studios of South Indian film industry, on Hunsur Road near Manasagangothri campus, was razed down on Friday. A residential apartment will come up on the site of the studio.

Premier Studio was the second largest film shooting studio in Asia till recently. Over 750 films in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Tulu, Konkani, English and Italian languages were shot here. Premier Studio was established by M N Basavarajaiah after Navajyothi Studio in Saraswathipuram in the city, which was considered as the largest studio in South India, was closed.

Initially, Premier Studio was functioning out of Chittaranjan Mahal, which belongs to the Mysuru Palace. In 1954, Premier Studio was shifted to Hunsur Road. The seven-storey building was housed on a 10 acre plot. The studio had facility to shoot seven films at a time. Veteran film artistes like Shankar Singh, B R Panthulu, Y R Swami, G V Iyer, R Nagendra Rao, Puttanna Kanagal, Manirathnam and K Balachander shot their films in the studio.

Among the actors who attended shooting on the sets in the studio include J Jayalalitha, former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Rajkumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Amrohi and Kamala Hasan.

It suffered a setback during the production of Hindi serial ‘The Sword of Tipu Sultan’ by Sanjay Khan. A fire in 1989 killed 42 artistes, technicians and workers.