Siva Shankara Vara Prasad. Konidela, better known as Chiranjeevi, was born on August 22, 1955 in Narasapur, Andhra Pradesh, India. He is one of the top four actors as well as the unofficial number one actor of the Telugu film industry. His father is Venkat Rao and his mother is Anjana Devi. He is often referred to as “Mega Star”. He has two brothers. Nagendra Babu and Pawan Kalyan. Nagendra Babu is a film producer while Pawan Kalyan is another famous actor.
Chiranjeevi entered the film industry with the film Pranam Khareedu in 1978. After this film, he played many supporting and negative characters in films like Mosagadu, 49 Rojulu, Manavoori Pandavulu. He went on like this until he got the breakthrough with the movie Khiladi. The film Khiladi, which was released in 1983 under the direction of Kodandarami Reddy, was a great success. He gave her the boost she needed to stay on top along with some of the best actors of the time. With movies like Abhilasha (1983), Challenge (1984), Passivadi Pranam (1987), Atthaku Yamudu Ammayiki Mogudu (1989) etc., he managed to establish a name for himself in the film industry. His streak continued into the 90s with movies like Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari (1990), Kodama Simham (1990), Gang Leader (1991), Rowdy Alludu (1991) and Gharana Mogudu (1992). Like any actor, he too suffered big box office disasters like Mechanic Alludu (1993), SP Parshuram (1994), Big Boss (1995) and Rikshavodu (1995).
These failures made him very careful in choosing a story, a poster, a director, etc., and it took him a considerable amount of time to gauge what really went wrong. In 1997 with the film “Master”, he again started his successful streak which continued with films like Choodalani Vundi (1998), Bavagaru Bagunnara (1998) and Sneham Kosam (1999). Later in 2002, Chiranjeevi had one more release, Indra. This movie turned out to be a huge hit and became the highest grossing movie of that year. He won the Nandi Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Actor for the film Indra. Later in 2003, he came out with another blockbuster “Tagore”. It was also the highest-grossing film of that year. His long-awaited “Anji” released in 2004, but failed to register success, despite high expectations. But with the MBBS movie Shankardada, he got another big hit. After this movie, he was once again disappointed by the results of movies like Andarivadu and Jai Chiranjeeva. He also appeared in a guest role in the style film directed by Raghava Lawrence. However, with the film Stalin got back on track. He is currently on set for his Shankardada film Zindabad, which is the sequel to his previous hit Shankardada MBBS.
Chiranjeevi, in October 1998, founded the Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust (CCT). This trust includes the Chiranjeevi eye bank and blood banks. It is the largest eye and blood bank in the state of Andhra Pradesh. So far, the blood bank has helped more than 80,000 people and the eye bank has helped more than 1,000 people. This trust has also won the “Best Voluntary Blood Bank” award from the Andhra Pradesh government for the past 4 years. In 2006, he also founded the Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust (CCF), which was inaugurated by the President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam. In 2006, Chiranjeevi received Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian award, from India’s President Dr. Abdul Kalam. Later, in November 2006, Chiranjeevi was honored with a PhD by Andhra University for his social work and his services to the film industry.
With the fact that Chiranjeevi’s son Ramcharan Teja’s film will be released very soon, it is speculated that Chiranjeevi will step out of the field of cinema and play an active role in the fields of charity and social service. Until now, Chiranjeevi has done a lot for the field of Telugu cinema as a great actor and for the people through his charitable foundation. Whatever his decision, let’s hope he continues to do good deeds.