CHIRANJEEVI PROFILE

NAME : CHIRANJEEVI

DATE OF BIRTH : AUG 22,1955

DEBUT FILM : PRANAM KAREEDU

CHIRU'S PROFILE :

The Telugu film Industry aka Tollywood, was born on 22 Aug 1955 in Narsapur, a small village in West Godavari District in Andhra Pradesh. Born as Konidela Siva Shankara Vara Prasad, eldest of five siblings to Venkat Rao and Anjana Devi, Chiru has two sisters and two brothers- Nagendra Babu a film producer, and youngest brother Pawan Kalyan an actor like himself.

Chiranjeevi completed his graduation from Y.N. College in Narsapuram and joined Madras Film Institute in Chennai for a Diploma in Acting. While studying he received a chance to act in the Telugu film 'Punaadi Rallu' directed by Raj Kumar, but his debutfilm release was ' Pranam Kareedu' in 1978. Subsequently, director Bapu signed him for 'Manavoori Pandavulu', which ran for 100 days and his portrayal of the character Parthu in the movie gained him some recognition. After this film, he played a lot of minor and negative characters in films such as

*Punaadi Rallu (1979)
*Mosagadu (1980)
*47 Rojulu (1981)
*Initilo Ramayya Vidhilo Krishnayya (1981) his first diamond jubilee film
*Khaidi (1983) which cemented his success in the industry.
*abhilasha (1983)
*Challenge (1984),
*Pasivadi Pranam (1987),
*Atthaku Yamudu Ammayiki Mogudu (1989)
*Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari (1990),
*Kodama Simham (1990),
*Gang Leader (1991),
*Rowdy Alludu (1991),
*Gharana Mogudu (1992).
*Mechanic Alludu (1993),
*S.P.Parshuram(1994),
*BigBoss(1995),
*Rikshavodu (1995).

These failures made him very careful about choosing a story, banner, director etc and he took a considerable amount of time sizing what actually went wrong.

In 1997 with the film “Master”, he again started his success streak that continued with the films like
*Choodalani Vundi (1998),
*Bavagaru Bagunnara (1998),
*Sneham Kosam (1999).

Later in 2002 Chiranjeevi had one more release, Indra. This film turned out to be a huge hit and became the highest grossing film of that year. He won both the Nandi Award and Filmfare Best Actor Award for the film Indra. Later in 2003, he came out with another block buster “Tagore”. It was also the highest grossing film of that year. His long-awaited “Anji” released in 2004, but it failed to record the success, despite the high expectations. But with the film Shankardada MBBS, he got another huge success. After this film he was again disappointed by the results

Since then there was no looking back for him. His swift dance movements and risky hair raising fights evoked immense response from the spectators. Most of his memorable characters are that of tough guys. At a later stage in his career, he has also done some films with social messages like

*Indra (2002)
*Tagore (2003)
*Anji (2004)
*Stalin (2005)

Throughout his career he has been through a lot of ups and downs but each time he came back with extra perseverance.

Chiranjeevi married Surekha, the daughter of veteran actor Sri Allu Ramalingaiah in 1980, and the couple is blessed with 2 daughters, Susmitha Vandana and Srija and a son,Ram Charan Teja. Chiru is a great believer of God, especially Hanuman.

He proved his mettle in Bollywood with the film

*Prathibandh (1990), a runaway success with Juhi Chawla,
*Aaj ka Goondaraj (1992),
*The Gentleman (1994),

a remake of the original in Tamil and few other flicks which did not make much ripple at the box office. Many of his films were dubbed to other languages especially Tamil, in the 80's beginning with 'Aarani Mantalu' and released simultaneously in both the states.