Akkineni Nageswara Rao

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Akkineni Nageswara Rao
Born	Akkineni Nageswara Rao September 20, 1924 (1924-09-20) (age 83) Venkataraghavapuram, India
Other name(s)	ANR, Natasamrat

Akkineni Nageswara Rao (born September 20, 1924 at Venkataraghavapuram, Dist. Krishna, Andhra Pradesh), also known as ANR, is a film actor from Gudivada Andhra Pradesh. He is one of the first fully commercial Telugu Cinema heroes. His films include a diverse range of genres which include mythological, folk tale, social, adventure and drama. He is a contemporary to NTR who jointly shared popularity as one of the greatest telugu actors for almost 40 years. Nageswara Rao was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1990 for his lifetime contributions to Indian cinema. He is also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.

He is the first person to cause the shift of Telugu film industry to Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh from Chennai, Tamilnadu in an attempt to bring the native language to the heart of the Telugu community. Soon after moving to Hyderabad, Nageswara Rao founded his own production house, Annapoorna Studios located in Banjara Hills.

He is noted for his class roles in the mid 1960's. His younger son Nagarjuna is also an actor in Telugu.

Even at the age of 83, Dr Akkineni Nageswara Rao still acts. He is specifically remembered in Andhra Pradesh for his biographical roles like Dr.Chakravarthy, Devadasu, Vipranarayana, Chakradhari, Tukaram, Kalidasu, Jayadeva, Tenali Ramakrishna, and Kshethrayya. Moreover he is popular as hero of many popular fiction novels which were made into films such as Doctor Chakravarthi, Prema Nagar, Secretary etc.

Akkineni's Premabhishekam movie is one of the biggest Industry Hit movies in Tollywood. Premabhishekam has an amazing 533 days run in Hyderabad City which is still highest run in a city for telugu movies. Premabhishekam is the only film in telugu that went for 365+ days run directly [1]