Scion of legendary Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Nagarjuna rose to one of the ‘Four Pillars’ position in the 80s and 90s. For his glamour, he managed to grab the hearts of female audience and is fondly called ‘Manmadhudu’. Unlike his contemporaries, the actor is always open to experimenting and giving chance to young talent with his films.

Personal Life:
Nagarjuna was born on 29th August 1959 in Chennai to Akkineni Nageswara Rao, legendary Telugu actor and his wife Annapurna. He did his schooling in Hyderabad Public School. He did his BE from Guindy College of Engineering, Chennai and later went on to do MS in Automobile Engineering from Eastern Michigan University in the United States.

Nagarjuna married Lakshmi Daggubati, daughter of veteran producer Rama Naidu in 1984 and the couple got a son, Naga Chaitanya who is currently a hero. Later the couple got divorced 1990. Nagarjuna later married his co-star Amala in 1992. And the couple has one more son, Akhil.

Filmy Career:
Nagarjuna first donned the grease paint as a child artist in 1967 for a Telugu film Sudigundalu directed by veteran director, Adurthi Subbarao. Later he began his career as hero in 1986 with Vikram directed by V.Madhusudhan Rao. The film was a remake of Bollywood film, Hero starring Jackie Shroff. He went on to act in movies like Captain Nagarjun, Aranya Khanda, Majnu, Sankeertana, Collector gari Abbayi, Agni Puthrudu, Kirai Dada, Akhari Poratam, China Babu, Murali Krishnudu, Janaki Ramudu, Vijay and Vicky Dada in the next 3 years. While his acting in Majnu as a tragedy hero won him good accolades, Akhari Poratam is the first big hit of his career. In Collector gari Abbayi, he first acted alongside his father, ANR.

1989 marks an important milestone year in the actor’s career.  His first break came with Maniratnam’s ‘Geetanjali’ that year. It ws a major blockbuster in his career and went on to win National Award for best entertaining film of that year. He gained critical acclaim for his performance as youngster who suffers from cancer. In the same year, he bagged another blockbuster with ‘Siva’ and also introduced the sensational director Ram Gopal Varma to the movie world. And from then there is no looking back to him.

In the next year, Nagarjuna made his Bollywood debut with the remake of Siva under the direction of Ram Gopal Varma. The movie was decent hit there too. After getting the required breaks, Nagarjuna carefully planned his career and went on mixing up the genre of his films. Action movies like Killer, Chaithanya and Nirnayam, Class movies like President Gari Pellam, Varasudu, Gharana Bullodu and Allari Alludu brought him closer to all sorts of audience. 

In 1994, he became the first hero of that generation to star in a Hindi-Telugu bilingual movie - Criminal directed by Mahesh Bhatt. The same year he tried hand in comedy for the first time with Hello Brother. The movie went on to become a big blockbuster and was later remade into Hindi as Judwaa and dubbed into Tamil.  It’s 1996 Krishna Vamsi’s movie, ‘Ninne Pelladatha’bagged two prestigious awards - the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu and Filmfare Award for Best Film.  Later ‘Annamayya’ marked the advent of Nag’s ‘spiritual’ career. He amazed the audience that he can portray the character of ‘Annamacharya’ with surprising ease. The movie got him the Nandi Award for Best Actor. Later on in his career, he went on to act in devotional movies like Sri Ramadasu and Shirdi Sai, all under the direction of the same, Raghavender Rao.

For some reason after Annamayya, the actor plunged in to a series of flops and that bad phase lasted for 9 films and 3 years. He broke the shackles with Nuvvu Vasthavani costarring Simran. The actor enjoyed a golden phase from 2002 where he had some memorable hits – Santosham, Manmadhudu, Shivamani, Mass, Nenunnanu.

‘Don’ which released in 2007 was the biggest grosser of his career and it was recently bettered by Damarukam.  King which released in 2008 was a good hit and the actor has been out of touch after that and is not delivering movies of his capability. After an exodus of flops - Kedi, Ragada, Gaganam, Rajanna, Greekuveerudu, Nagarjuna rebounded at the box office with his family Multistarer film, Manam. His performance as Bittu in the film is one of his career best. Also the film went on to become the biggest hit in his career.

Upcoming Films:

• Soggade Chinni Nayana directed by a newcomer Kalyan Krishna.

Business Side:
Nagarjuna was a shrewd businessman besides being an actor. He is maintaining the Annapurna Studios constructed by his father, ANR. The studios offer facilities for movie shootings and post production works. He also produces movies under Annapurna Studios banner. The actor recently started a film and media school – ISFM to train aspirants in films and media. He is also one of the director and major stake holder in leading Telugu entertainment channel – MAA.

Nagarjuna also have a couple of restaurants in Hyderabad city – N-Grill and N-Asian (partnership with Shilpa Reddy). He also owns a share in Mahi Racing Team along with Indian Cricketer MS Dhoni. He recently purchased the Mumbai team of Indian Badminton League along with former Indian cricketer, Sunil Gavaskar. 

TV Career:
Nagarjuna made his Television debut with Meel Koteeswarudu, the Telugu version of the famous Kaun Banega Crorepati show. The show which was telecast on MAA TV was one of the most popular show in Television history and the TRPs of it touched a new peak in Telugu TV history.

Trivia:

• The otherwise non controversial Nagarjuna landed in trouble in 2011 when a female journalist lodged sexual harassment case on the actor but later the issue was settled out of the courts.
• Nagarjuna’s wife Amala is a co-founder of the Blue Cross society which takes care of the welfare of Animals and their rights.
• In 2010, the actor appeared in an HIV/AIDS animated software tutorial created by TeachAIDS, a nonprofit founded at Stanford University.
• The actor campaigned for Congress party in 2008 and endorsed the welfare schemes of the then Chief Minister YS Raja Sekhar Reddy. But he always stood aloof from politics.