Cho Ramaswamy, a senior journalist, political analyst and actor, died at Apollo Hospital in Chennai.  A former BJP Rajya Sabha member, Mr Ramaswamy was ailing for some time and was in the hospital.

• Mr Ramaswamy had personal rapport with many politicians in the country. Late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was a good friend of Mr Ramaswamy and used to seek his views.
• A multi-faceted personality Mr Ramaswamy was also a play writer and a stage actor. He has also directed several movies and was also a screen play writer. Mr Ramaswamy has acted in movies along with MG Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan, Jayalalithaa, Kamal Hassan, Rajinikanth and others.

  He has written, directed and acted in over 20 Tamil plays which were performed over 5,000 times, acted in 180 movies scripted 14 movies, directed four films.

• Born on October 5, 1934, he was a lawyer by training and later branched into theatre, films and finally to journalism. Winner of the B.D. Goenka award for excellence in journalism, he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha by the BJP government and served as an MP from 1999 to 2005.

• Born into a family of lawyers — his grandfather Arunachala Iyer, his father Srinivasa Iyer and uncle Mathrubootham were well-known lawyers — Cho also took up the legal profession. For some time, he was a legal advisor to the TTK group, before plunging fully into theatre. Later, he ventured into films and finally made his mark as a journalist by launching his own magazine.