Legends Of Telugu Cinema, NTR and ANR Options

[Abdur Rehman]

I am starting a new post on the Legends of Telugu Cinema NT Rama Rao and A Nageswar Rao. I know the foot fall of this post will be few but still I want to complete my collection and sharing the albums available with me of these two legends. These two need no introduction as far as Telugu Cinema is concerned. They were fortunate enough to have reigned the Golden Period of Telugu Cinema accompanied my Ghantasala's music. Here is the brief biography of these two stars followed by their filmography.

[Abdur Rehman]

He is liberally graced with all the awards an actor can get. He is the recipient of Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the greatest honor for an actor in this country. He is also the recipient of Raghupati Venkayya Award, the best award for any actor at state level. He also grabbed the Kalidasu award granted by MP Government at national level. Not to mention the NTR National award given by our state government. He is recently been appointed as an adviser to the State Film Development Corporation. Though, it was an official position for ANR, he was voluntarily helping the film industry in various ways since ages. He was the first Telugu hero to migrate from Madras (now known as Chennai) to Hyderabad to develop film industry in AP. He laid the foundation stone for Hyderabad Telugu cinema by announcing that all his producers have to produce their films in AP, if ANR has to act in them. He gave a five-point plan to state government about how to improve the Telugu Cinema industry in AP in 1963. ANR is an engineer and architect within himself and a designer too, when it came to the construction of his studios. Annapoorna Studios is one of the best in Asia, with all the facilities, the lack of which in other studios. Since there were no studios in AP at that time, then Nageswara Rao established Annapurna studios after his wife’s name Annapurna. After seeing the deterioration in the number of films getting produced in AP, he incorporated an award for the best film to encourage the filmmakers. State Government is presenting Akkineni Nageswara Rao award every year. ANR never cared for commercial success when it comes to producing films on his own banner, Annapurna Pictures. He did two noble films, Sudi Gundalu and Maro Prapancham.
Nageswara Rao is married to Akkineni Annapurna and is blessed with two sons and a daughter one of his son Akkineni Nagarjuna is a well-known actor Telugu film industry, and his family has produced several notable artists to Telugu film industry.

The major contributory factor for the everlasting image of this evergreen hero is that none in India or even in foreign land has such long screen innings as a hero, like ANR does. It is a record for any artiste to stay hero for more than six decades on screen.
For ANR "'Maya Bazar' of KV Reddy is a lesson in cinematography art," he says. For him 'Donga Ramudu' is a social epic in cinema art. ANR described Adurti Subba Rao as a bridge between the old and new generations of directors. He brought changes in story narration, combining the values of the past with the present and narrating a story with the technical advancement. These are all firsts. For ANR the golden period for Telugu cinema was between 1950 and 1970.

In his 69 years in the Telugu film industry, Akkineni Nageswara Rao has played the lead role in over 256 Telugu films and 26 Tamil films. Several of these films turned out to be financial and critical successes. . He is a man with great sense of discipline and perspicacity. A legend in his own lifetime.