Nagarjuna is a leading figure in Indian cinema, who predominantly appears in Telugu movies. Actor of versatile actor Akkineni Nageshwara Rao, Nagarjuna was born on August 29, 1959, in Madras. Nagarjuna completed his plus two at Hyderabad and pursued engineering in Chennai after which he moved to USA where he earned MS degree in Automobile Engineering from Eastern Michigan University.
Nagarjuna appeared as debutant hero in Majnu movie that was released in 1986, which grossed well at the box-office, which gave him another assignment of Dasari Narayana Rao—Majnu. This movie too kept Nagarjuna yet another time under the spotlight.
He went to appear in action oriented flicks such as Aakhari Poratam and Janaki Ramudu. He, however, got a major break when he appeared in the lead role in Mani Ratnam’s Geetanjali in 1989. The next year, he carved a special image in Telugu cinema with Shiva movie, which created waves across the state and remains to be one of the biggest all time blockbusters of Telugu cinema. Notably, this movie was even dubbed in Hindi that paved way for Nagarjuna to enter Bollywood.
While he continued to act in many Telugu flicks, Mahesh Bhatt approached Nagarjuna for Telugu-Hindi bilingual movie—Criminal, which was released in 1994 and rocked the threatres across the country. Year 1996 witnessed Nagarjuna as a producer for he acted and produced all time romantic movie Ninnepelladatha, which gave him the nickname ‘Greekuveerudu.’
While Nagarjuna was already at peak as romantic actor, he tried his hands at mythological stuff by essaying Sage Annamacharya’s character in Annamayya, released in 1997. This movie apparently drew people from all sections and fetched first Nandi Award to Nagarjuna besides National Award.
The last movie he acted was Manam, wherein he shared screenspace with his late father Nageshwara Rao, wife Amala, his sons—Naga Chaitanya and Akhil.
Nagarjuna won the hearts of Telugu people with a reality television programme—Meelo Evaru Koteeshwarudu (the Telugu version of KBC).
