TELUGU FILM INDUSTRY LEGENDARY `SUPERSTAR’ KRISHNA PASSES AWAY

With the passing away of Telugu Superstar Krishna, the legendary `Quartet' of Telugu Industry consisting of NTR, ANR, Krishna and Shobhanbabu has come to an end.

If there is a reference of two eyes of Telugu film industry the names of NT Ramarao (NTR) and A. Nageswara Rao (ANR) comes to our mind and if there is a reference of four pillars of the Telugu film industry, then the names of Krishna and Shobhan Babu is taken along with the names of NTR and ANR.     

He was blessed with very fair, handsome personality which he maintained in top conditions for over 40 years of his active film career. One of the few actors who announced his retirement at the right time and never acted after that though he had his own production house, and his son Mahesh Babu is top Telugu star for over 15 years. 

  

Though considered to be an average actor going by emotional quotient of his acting he managed to be in the top four Telugu actors' bracket for over 3 decades and has over 360 movies as leading actor to his credit and holds the record for completing 300 movies the fastest.   Like NTR and many other Telugu film stars he is known for his punctuality, hard work, sincerity and dedication and added to these qualities blessed with a golden heart.    

Discipline and Work ethics:  A workaholic, he pioneered the concept of working in three shifts the first shift starting sharp at 7 am and the last one going upto 9 pm in the night.    In 70s and early 80s in many years he used to have 12 releases a year and still holds the Telugu industry record for 18 releases in a year.      He was conferred the title of SUPER STAR by his fans (first time the word superstar coined for a Telugu actor) and also the title of  "NATASEKHAR

The Andhra James Bond: Krishna may not be my favourite actor by any yard stick but in my school days if I had to go to a movie it has to be a Krishna’s movie for its unending car, motorcycle chases, or horse ride chases and fight scenes. His first major hit (Golden Jubilee) was his 3^rd movies Gudachari 116 (which was remade as Farz in Hindi with Jitender which also made his career).   With the success of Gudachari 116, he continued to act in maximum number of action movies most of them used to be direct imports from Hollywood even beating Hindi producers in the race in copying/adopting.   

He acted in many James bond and cowboy movies (many produced by his own banner Padmalaya) which used to be much ahead of its times in terms of technology, action scenes and richness of the movie.  That was the reasons he was fondly referred to as Andra Jame Bond and Cowboy

Contribution as Film Producer : His contribution is more noteworthy as a Producer than as an actor. Whatever may be the poor quality of the movies he acted, when it comes to production, he used to take utmost care that he brought out the best product and as a producer he never disappointed.  Under his Banner PADMALAYA, he produced some of the biggest and costliest Telugu multi-starters, and under another banner Vijayakrishna movies he made some meaningful off-beat movies.    

The Care off address to Big Budget movies : Unlike Hindi, Telegu film industry was never known for multi starters as the top stars never liked to act together.   But Krishna under his banner brought together plenty of super stars of Telugu film industry in movies like PANDANTI KAPURAM, ALLURI SEETARAMA RAJU, DEMUDUCHESINA MANUSHULU. KURUKSHETRAM and SIMHASANAM.    

 The cost of those movies used to be so high that he could only break even if they ran for silver jubilee but all of them were Golden jubilee hits with the exception of Kurukhestram which could barely recover its cost.      His cowboy movie MOSAGALLAKU MOSAGADU (set in the deserts and forts of Rajasthan) was adaptation of Mackenn"s  Gold and Good Bad and Ugly and for a Telegu movie with a limited market that was a very risky venture in those days but his guts have paid him off well with the movie becoming not only super hits but raising the bar of production value of a Telugu movie. The movie was the first Telugu movie which was dubbed in many languages including Tamil, Hindi (as Khajana), English (as Treasure Hunt) and many foreign languages.   Because of his high-risk taking appetite, he was called as `Daring and Dashing Producer’.   He had many distinctions as a producer – first full length Eastman colour movie, first cinemascope movie,  first 70 mm movie and first DTS movie in Telugu.   PANDANTI KAPURAM and ALLURI SEETA RAMA RAJU both produced by him won National awards for best feature film in the years of their releases and he was conferred Padma Bushan by govt. of India for his contribution to Telugu film industry and he was also conferred Filmfare Life time achievement award.

Besides Telugu movies he produced many Hindi movies under his banner Padmalaya Pictures like Himmatwala (which has resurrected Jitender’s career) Meri Awaaz Suno and Suryavamsam

Man with a Golden Heart: Apart from being good human being, down to earth and amiable, another unique thing he introduced in the film industry and followed till end of his career was that if any of his movie flopped to the extent of producer not been able to recover his investment, he used to act in that producer’s next movie without any remuneration.  So if a movie of his was a hit, in any case the producer used to repeat him but even if the movie was a flop, the producer used to come back to take benefit of this concession scheme.  For sure few of those repeat movies used to be hit and made money prompting the producer to repeat him and thus he always used to be on a roll.  He always supported and helped some of the actors/characters actors long forgotten by the industry by giving small roles in his movies.    Rammohan with whom he debuted and whose career could not take off after that first movies has always found a role in all his productions in the next 30 years.     

Short Political career:  On request of Rajiv Gandhi Krishna entered politics and won Lok Sabha election on Congress ticket.    Though Krishna maintained a very cordial relation with entire Industry, there has always been a huge under current between him and NTR right from the days he made Alluri Seetarama Raju which NTR wanted to make but kept pending for long time.    After joining politics on congress ticket they became natural rivals and Krishna made some satirical movies on NTR viz., Mandadaleesudu and Gandi Peta Rakashyam.    After assassination of Rajiv Gandhi he exited from politics once for all.   

Relaxed Retired Life: After working for more than four decades and more than 360 movies in leading roles, he announced his retirement 10 years back very gracefully and dignifiedly and led a peaceful and relaxed retired life.  Krishna is considered to be the best in business as far as gauging the audience mood and predicting the success of movie fairly accurately.   That has helped his Son Mahesh Babu immensely in choosing right subjects and  MAHESH BABU has been phenomenal success and holding to No. 1 position in Telugu industry for over 15 years now.  Like father Mahesh Babu too is extremely smart and handsome and understably heart throb of all youth in Andhra and Telangana.  

My personal record: Being a die hard movie buff since my childhood i might have seen many movies of many stars but Krishan starrers hold a personal record.   Roughly i might have seen over 200 of his movies closely followed by NTR over 150 movies.    I might not have seen not even 100 movies of any other stars.   

Krishna, is another success story which proves that though one may not be extraordinarily talented, but with sheer hard work, dedication, being humane and focused one could be very successful in life.

Thanks for all the entertainment, specially in my childhood and being a great producer with super guts - undoubtedly you are DARING AND DASHING  

A life lived worthy.  When the History of Telugu Industry is written, Krishna, will find a golden chapter in it. 

OM SHANTI

S. Prabhakar

15.11.22