L. Krishnan

L. Krishnan died in Chiang Mai on 24 September 2026 at 2.15pm local time, aged 104. Free Malaysia Today, The Star and Bernama reported the death, with Finas chief executive Azmir Saifuddin Mutalib confirming word from Yayasan Artis Veteran Malaysia. The cause was given as old age.

Funeral arrangements were in progress when the news broke. Malaysian film and cultural figures marked the loss of one of the last survivors of Malay cinema's founding generation.

Lakshmanan Krishnan was born in Madras (now Chennai), India, on 21 October 1922 and raised in Penang. He completed Senior Cambridge at Bukit Mertajam High School in 1941.

During the Japanese Occupation he worked briefly as a translator. In 1946 the British army sent him back to Madras, where he soon became an assistant director at Kalairani Films. In 1942 he had also worked as a receptionist at Raffles Hotel in Singapore, according to Malay Wikipedia.

Krishnan returned to Singapore in 1949 as a director at Shaw Studio's Malay Film Productions. Bakti (1950), his first feature, launched P. Ramlee as a leading Malay-film actor. He directed further Ramlee vehicles including Takdir Ilahi (1950), Penghidupan (1951) and Antara Senyum dan Tangis (1952), and worked with Maria Menado, Kasma Booty, Mustapha Maarof and others.

In April 1952 he moved to Cathay-Keris, where he made popular horror and adventure films such as Orang Minyak and Serangan Orang Minyak. In October 1960 he went to Kuala Lumpur with Ho Ah Loke to help establish Merdeka Studio; his last Merdeka direction was Selendang Merah (1962). In 1970 he founded Gaya Filem Berhad, later adding Gaya Music Studio and a colour laboratory, and successfully pressed for tariffs that favoured local commercial production. He later chaired the Borneo Film Organisation Sabah and Cathay Organisation Malaysia.

Krishnan married a Thai national and spent many of his later years in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Public obituaries from Finas and Malaysian press confirmed that residence but did not widely publish his wife's name or details of children.

He remained a living link between Madras, Penang, Singapore's Jalan Ampas studios and the Merdeka Studio complex that Finas later preserved.

Krishnan is remembered as the director who discovered P. Ramlee and as a builder of Shaw, Cathay-Keris and Merdeka Studio. Malay Wikipedia credits him with more than thirty features and with nurturing stars who became household names.

His Merdeka Award in 2016 recognised decades of advocacy for Malaysia's film and music industries. FINAS retained the original Merdeka Studio site in part as a tribute to that pioneering era, of which Krishnan was among the last living witnesses.