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Ghattamaneni Sivarama Krishna Murthy (born on the May 31, 1943), more commonly referred to as (SuperStar) Krishna, is one of Tollywood's most prolific actors, having acted in more than 350 movies. He is credited with introducing many firsts in Telugu film Industry like first Colour movie, first Cinemascope movie, first 70mm movie, first Cowboy movie, etc.
Family
He is from Burri Palem near to Tenali. He is the eldest of five children born to Sri Ghattamaneni Veeraraghavayya Chowdhary and Smt. Ghattamaneni Nagaratnamma. He married Indira in 1965 and with whom he has five children: two sons, Ramesh Babu (a film producer) & Mahesh Babu (also an actor who is very famous in not only tollywood but all through India.); and three daughters; Padmavati, Priyadarshani, and Manjula (a film producer). In 1969, he married actress and director Vijaya Nirmala.
Career
Krishna came from a middle income agrarian family. He could not afford to have a convent education and had to attend the government school in his village to get his primary education before moving to Tenali and Narsapur to do his S.S.C and Intermediate. Delighted by his scholastic achievements, his father Veeraraghavayya mobilized the necessary financial resources to send his son to the (then) prestigious C.R.R. college in Eluru so as to enable his eldest son pursue his under graduation (B.Sc). There, he became involved in theatre.
He is well known for the title role he played in "Alluri Sitaramaraju". He is also known for the being successful in the Indian versions of movies inspired by the James Bond franchise and of American westerns. He produced and starred in the first Cinema Scope movie (Alluri Sita Rama Raju) and the first 70 mm movie (Simhasanam) in Tollywood. His "Indian-western" film 'Mosagallaku Mosagadu', inspired by 'Mackennas Gold' was dubbed into English and was screened in more than 125 countries, which is another record in Indian cinema.
He is not only an actor but has been a successful producer, director, screenplay and script writer. He established Padmalaya Studios in Hyderabad. His banner Padmalaya productions has produced many movies in all the South Indian languages and in Bollywood with super hit movies like Himmatwala and Pataalbhairavi to their credit.
He served as Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) from Eluru constituency for a short duration during 1989-90. He has been a very good friend of Rajiv Gandhi.
Despite his commercial success and long fruitful career, he has never won any major awards. He is known for investing all his earnings back into film industry. He has been voted as "SUPER STAR" or many consecutive years in a survey conducted by one of the leading Tollywood magazines.
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