Another sad news for Telugu film industry. Veteran actor, director, producer and ex-union minister Dasari Narayana Rao has passed away today at 7 pm at Krishna Institute of Medical sciences (KIMS), Hyderabad. He was 75. He is survived by 2 sons and a daughter. He was admitted to hospital last week citing High BP and Kidney related issues. Three days ago he underwent a surgery but still his health got deteriorated. He was suffering from several health ailments from a couple of months. He got admitted to KIMS this January and was discharged.
Before doctors have announced officially, producer C.Kalyan, who is close to Dasari has come out of the hospital teary eyed and said “Guru garu is no more. The body would be shifted soon”. Doctors have officially announced soon.
He was born on May 4th, 1942 at Palakollu in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. He was passionate about drama and theatre and that has pushed him towards film. He assisted director Adurthi Subba rao and has developed his own style. Apart from commercial movies, he has directed several movies related to social issues like corruption, suppression of classes as movie concepts and delivered strong messages.
He got into ‘Limca Book of records’ and ‘Guinness Book of Records’ for directing 151 films, producing 53 films and working for around 250 films in writing, screenplay, lyrics and more. He worked as a character artist in many movies in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada films and have introduced several legendary actors like Mohan babu, R. Narayana Murthy, etc. His films have been screened at Cannes film festival, Moscow film festival etc. He received National Awards for Megha Sandesham, Kante Kurthurine Kanali, several film fare awards and nine AP state Nandi Awards. He did several critically acclaimed films like MLA Edukondalu, Tatha Manumadu, Swargam narakam, Premabhishekam which have changed the face of Telugu movies. He entered Hindi film industry by directing two films but couldn’t garner success there.
He entered politics through Congress and stayed loyal to that. He was elected to Rajya sabha on Congress ticket and has served as Minister of State for Coal in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet. But he faced allegations for corruption in the department and the case is under trial with CBI.
Nevertheless, film fraternity has lost a legend and we offer sincere condolences to his family and supporters.
