ANR - the Legend of Telugu film industry is no more

Andhra woke up today to the sad news of the demise of one of the doyens of Telugu Film Industry Akkeneni Nageswara Rao, (popularly known as ANR).  ANR has been one of the strong central pillars (along with NTR) on which the Telugu film industry stood and flourished for more than half a century.   In the earlier phase of their career both NTR and ANR acted together in many movies of Vijaya banner like Guddamma Katha, Maya Bazar and Missamma all of which remained in the top list of all time great Telugu movies

ANR had great limitations compared to the colossal NTR, who had fantastic personality, charm, dialogue delivery because of which he suited in wide variety of roles.   In the early part of his career since lot of mythological movies used to be made in Telugu and NTR has acquired the status of Demi-God, there was no option for ANR but to try his hand in mythological roles, but he never suited the roles like Rama, Krishna and not to talk about Ravana and Duryodhana which needed a massive physical personality like that of NTR and SV Ranga Rao.    So he used to play it safe by falling back on roles like Arjuna, Abhimanu, Narada etc (almost a second fiddle to NTR who donned the powerful roles Rama, Krishna, Ravana, Duryadhana), but he could never made any mark in mythological roles.   Same thing goes for action movies, his personality and soft dialogue delivery style never suited them.   

But it is to the credit of ANR that he always tried to remain within his limitations, chose subjects and films that suited him and developed a huge fan base specially of class audience and female audience and for more than 30 years gave run for the money to NTR and stretched his career to over 70 years.    He mostly did family oriented movies, movies based on famous novels and as and when required he used to fall back upon the tried and tested `alcoholic tragedy king’ role.    He immortalized the role of Devdas which released in 1953, though the movie was made and re-made in many languages and many times no one including the famous Dilip Kumar could come anywhere near his essaying of the character  and it prompted Dilip Kumar to say, "there is only one Devadas and that is Nageswara Rao’.    After Devdas there was no looking back forhim.    He did similar tragedy-lover role in Prem Nagar and Premabhishekam with the same effect and stupendous success.   He developed great rapport and excellent understanding with banners like Jagapati, Suresh Productions, Vijaya, Prasad productions who used to repeat him film after film.    Music used to be a highlight in his movies with Gantasala rendering some of the most memorable super hit songs for him.    Mid way through his career he developed his dancing skills and in late 60s and entire 70s, he was probably the only South Indian hero who became famous for his dances which forced other heros to try their hand in dancing including NTR, who used to have two left feet.    After 90s dancing has become a mandatory requirement for every hero, but one should credit ANR to have pioneered dancing by heros in film industry which domain was reserved for heroines before him.     Devdas, Gundamma Katha, Maya Bazar, Missama, Dr. Chankravarthy,Mooga Manasulu,  Dasara Bullodu, Prem Nagar, Premabhishekam have been massive hits and at the same time, his roles in these movies were critically acclaimed

In my childhood I knew Andhra being divided only on one issue ANR FANS AND NTR FANS.   In Vijayawada, there used to be two theaters Durga Kalamandir and Alankar and a small foot bridge used to be there in between the two theaters.    Durga Kalamandir used to release all NTR movies whereas Alankar used to release ANR movies and the vice versa has never happened till mid 70s when I was there.     The day either a NTR or ANR movie used to be released there used to be pitched battles on that bridge with people throwing soda bottles on each others, in the entire city huge posters used to be garlanded by the respective fans but by the night cow dung used to be thrown by the rival fans.     Both NTR and ANR used to have thousands of fan clubs and the fans used to be die hard variety.     Though both NTR and ANR always maintained that they did not have any personal differences and it was only fan-created rivalry, they did not act together for more than two decades and only came together once again in late 70s and acted in 2-3 movies together like Chanakya-Chandragupta.

Another great quality of ANR was that he has always been simple, amenable and remained non-controversial.     He had always been kind, courteous to fellow artists, heroines, producers, directors and technicians and always avoided controversies in his interviews even after persistent probing.    Though he worked with more than 80 heroins in his career spanning more than 60 years, including Sridevi and Jayaprada in 1980s when they were age of the age of his grand-children, he was never linked up with any heroines and always maintained a good family-man image – on and off the screen.    Even when he was diagnosed with cancer, he called a press meet and announced himself that he was detected with cancer and fans need not worry, he will battle out with it and come back healthy as he did with his heart ailment in mid 70s rather than rumor mills working overtime.   

He is the man who was credited with taking the first step in moving the Telugu film industry from Madras to Hyderabad by building the first film studio Annapurna Studio (in the name of his wife) in Hyderabad and at present major part of telugu films are being shot in Andhra itself with more studoes like Suresh, Padmalaya and Ramoji film city coming up in Hyderabad.    The Telugu film industry and artists specially the junior artists will always remain indebted to him for this initiative.    He also produced many meaningful movies under the Annapurna banner.

Being a south Indian actor, like many other greats, he did not get his deserved due at national and international level, but nonetheless he was conferred with Padma Vibushan (the second highest civilian award), Dadabai Phale Award, and four film fare awards and equal number of Nandi award by AP Govt.  It surprises and shocks me that he has never won a National Award (this unfortunate distinction he shares with NRT).      He made his debut in 1941 and acted in 256 movies and completed his last movie `Manam’ in 2013 at the age of 90 which makes it  72 years acting career and he literally died with his acting shoes on.   I am sure both acting for 72 years and acting at the age of 90 must be world records.   His Son Nagarjuna and grandson Nagachaitanya are also popular telugu stars.    

Even in his last movie he created a record in Telugu Industry where Grandfather (ANR), son (Nagarjuna) and grandson (Nagachaitanya) worked together and it is unfortunate that he missed the release date by a month or so.

As long as Telugu film industry lives ANR and NTR continue to remain as its two eyes and Telugu audience remain indebted to him for the great entertainment.  After SVR, NTR with the demise of ANR an era in Telugu film industry has come to an end.      May the great soul rest in peace.   

S. Prabhakar

22.1.2014