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Popularly Known As

Chiranjeevi

Birth NameKonidala Siva Sankara Vara Prasad
Date of birth Aug 22nd, 1955
Birth Place Mogalthur
Occupation Hero

""Nobody can replace Chiranjeevi from No.1 spot... He is a living Legend" - Mahesh Babu"

Did You
know

Chiranjeevi always wanted an opportunity to repay the audience who is responsible for his success.

Overview

Konidala Siva Sankara Vara Prasad, when he took the screen name Chiranjeevi, nobody could have imagined the magnitude of success and the altitude of the peaks he would scale Started his career with villain roles and roles as a second lead and is today the biggest star ever produced by Telugu Cinema after NTR and ANR.

Personal Life:
Chiranjeevi is born as Konidala Siva Sankara Vara Prasad on August 22nd 1955. His native is Mogalturu, West Godavari but his father, Konidala Venkata Rao. His mother is Anjana Devi, a home maker. He is the elder brother of Power Star Pawan Kalyan and producer Nagendra Babu. He is married to Surekha, daughter of legendary comedian, Allu Rama Lingaiah and has three children – Ram Charan, Srija and Sushmita. His son, Ram Charan is an actor.

Chiranjeevi did his Intermediate in C.S.R. Sharma College at Ongole. He completed degree in commerce from Y.N. College at Narsapuram.

Career:

After completing his degree, Chiranjeevi moved to Chennai and joined the Madras Film Institute in 1976 to pursue a career in acting. Chiranjeevi’s first donned the grease paint for Pranam Khareedhu. He got an offer in Punadhi Rallu while shooting for it and the later released first. Later Manavoori Pandavulu directed by Bapu got him good name. Industry found a good villain in him and more of such roles came his way. Some of the notable films in this phase are - I Love You and K. Balachander's Idi Katha Kaadu,starring Kamal Haasan. Mosagadu, Rani Kasula Rangamma, K.Bala Chander’s 47 Rojulu, A. Kodandarami Reddy's Nyayam Kavali (1981). He also managed to create an impression for himself in audience with his fights and good dance movements.

His stint of villain roles and second leads came to an end with his 38th movie, Intlo Ramayya Veedhilo Krishnayya which was a big hit at the box office. He later acted in K.Vishwanadh’s Subhalekha which deals with the social malady of the dowry system which brought the 1st Filmfare Best Actor Award. He struggled initially to prove himself as solo hero. The biggest break of his career came in the form of ‘Khaidhi’ which paved way for a new trend of mass masala entertainers. In the phase before, Khaidhi, he acted in performance oriented Abhilasha. Even after attaining stardom, he acted in several meaningful films like Swayam Krushi. Pasivadi Pranam, Rudraveena. He won his first Nandi Award for Swayam Krushi.

Slowly Chiranjeevi began to cement his place in the hearts of Telugu audience. He began to combine comedy with mass elements and bagged success. His movies then used to bring up a new flavour to Telugu cinema and Movies like Chantabbayi, Yamudiki Mogudu, Athaku Yamudu Ammayiki Mogudu, Kondaveeti Donga, Jagadheka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari worked wonders both at box office and consolidating his fan base.

During this phase, he graduated from being a ‘Supreme Hero’ to a ‘Megastar’. With the increase of budgets and risk involved in the film trade, he slowly stopped experimenting and began to play larger than life characters and never ventured anywhere close to avant garde characters. Majority of his films like Indra, Tagore, and Shankar Dada MBBS were huge hits. Interestingly, not so good movies he delivered also managed to get decent revenue.

He has acted in four different languages, namely Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Hindi. There was also a Hollywood movie which was started, ‘The return of the thief of Baghdad’, but due to unforeseen reasons it was shelved before completion. For a career spanning 31 years, he has appeared in 149 movies (His last being a special appearance in his son Ram Charan’s Magadheera) and there exists a lot of hope among his fans and general public alike that he would come back and appear in a movie that would be his 150th.

Humanitarian work:

Once he attained stardom, Chiranjeevi always wanted an opportunity to repay the audience who is responsible for his success. He established Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust (CCT) in 1998 which undertakes blood and eye donation drives in Andhra Pradesh. The actor took up several campaigns for educating people about blood and eye donations.

Political Career:

In 2008, heeding to the pressure of fans, Chiranjeevi floated a new political party, ‘Praja Rajyam Party’ with an aim to provide alternate political solution in the state. His entire family members actively took part in the election campaign. However, his party just managed to win 18 MLA seats and Chiranjeevi himself faced defeat from his native district. He finally merged the party in to Congress in 2011. Chiranjeevi was made the Union Minister for Tourism with Independent charge.

Controversies:

There were several controversies about misuse of his blood bank and eye bank. But Chiranjeevi managed to come clean after a clean-chit by a committee formed by the State Government.
His youngest daughter Srija eloped with her boy friend Sirish Bhardwaj in 2007. In media, she claimed that she was arrested and even has a life threat from her father, Chiranjeevi.
Chiranjeevi’s image was tarnished beyond repair with his political entry. There were allegations by opposition parties that his Praja Rajyam Party sold tickets for money. These comments found remarkable coverage in media and contributed their part in the defeat of the party in the following elections.