Tollywood Superstar Akkineni Nagarjuna was born exactly 63 years ago today in the house of Telugu film star Akkineni Nageswara Rao. Like his father, he also decided to work in films. Nagarjuna has worked in about 100 Hindi and South films. Nagarjuna started his acting career with the 1986 South film Vikram. He started his journey in Bollywood with the film Shiva. Nagarjuna has been ranked at number 56 and 61 in the Forbes list of India’s top-100 people for 2012-13.
Originally Nagarjuna’s family hails from Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh. His father had moved to Madras in search of work as an actor. After some time his entire family shifted to Hyderabad, where Nagarjuna completed his studies. He also studied Mechanical Engineering for one year from Anna University, Madras.
If the father was an actor, the atmosphere of the family also remained filmy. This had an effect on Nagarjuna as well, with growing age, acting started tempting him too. Following his father’s footsteps, he quit engineering and decided to become an actor.
Please tell that Nagarjuna worked as a child artist in the 1967 film Sudigundalu. Apart from this, he also appeared in the film Velugu Needalu as a child. The role of lead actor in both these films was played by his father Nageswara Rao.
Nagarjuna made his lead debut in the 1986 Telugu film Vikram. It was a remake of the 1983 film Hero. His very first film was a success at the box office, giving him a good start to his career. After this, he appeared in the film Manju, which also got a lot of appreciation from the people.
Apart from the film screen, Nagarjuna has also worked in the television field. In 2009, he started working as a television producer with the show soap opera Yuva. He is also the host of the Telugu show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The show is similar to Kaun Banega Crorepati hosted by Amitabh Bachchan in Hindi. He was honored with the Entertainment Leader Award (Television) for hosting the show aptly. Nagarjuna has also hosted the Telugu version of Big Boss in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
More than professional life, Nagarjuna remained in discussion due to his personal life. He was married even before making a mark on the big screen. In February 1984, he was married to Lakshmi Daggubati, daughter of noted film producer D. Ramanaidu. Lakshmi’s brother Venkatesh is one of the top most heroes of Telugu cinema.
Nagarjuna’s father wanted to convert his friendship with D. Ramanaidu into a relationship, so he fixed Nagarjuna’s marriage with Lakshmi. Two years after the marriage, Lakshmi gave birth to a son, Naga Chaitanya. Naga Chaitanya is also active in the film industry. However, after a few years of marriage, things did not go well between the two and after 6 years, both of them got divorced.
After the upheaval in his personal life, Nagarjuna completely immersed himself in films. During this, he met co-star Amala Mukherjee, who played the lead actor in some of his films. While working together, Nagarjuna was fascinated by her way of working and started liking her. For some time this love remained only from Nagarjuna’s side. One day during the shooting of the film, he wanted to impress Amala. Then he came to know that for some reason Amala does not want to come out of her vanity van.
When asked, Amala told that she is not happy with some of the costumes worn in the films. It looks totally weird to her, so she doesn’t want to wear it. This innocence of Amala touched Nagarjuna. He assured that he will talk to the personal director on this subject.
This support of his won the heart of Amla as well. After this incident both became very good friends. After some time their friendship turned into love. The fact is that people liked the on-screen pair of both of them very much, so they did most of the films together. The on-screen chemistry turned strong in real life as well.
After dating for some time, Nagarjuna made a plan to propose Amala. In 1991, both went on a tour of America. It was here that Amala was proposed by Nagarjuna in film style. After this proposal, Nagarjuna married Amala in 1992. Family and close friends were involved in this marriage. After 2 years of marriage, son Akhil Akkineni was born.
A news from the 90s shook the foundation of Nagarjuna and Amala’s relationship. At this time the news of Nagarjuna and Tabu’s affair was in full swing. After marriage, he started dating Tabu. Although both never talked about it. After living together for about 10 years, Tabu was convinced that Nagarjuna would divorce Amala and never marry her. Keeping this in mind, Tabu broke up with him.
Nagarjuna also said in an interview, Tabu is my good friend. Our friendship is very old. I was 22 when I met her and she was 16. Whatever can be said about our friendship is less. I have nothing to hide about them. To me, she is a beautiful person and a friend who will always be. Tabu is one of the few important people in life. Nagarjuna has tremendous fan following due to acting in films. Such is the craze of the fans that a die heart fan of Nagarjuna got a grand Annamacharya temple built to inspire from the 1997 film ‘Annamayya’.
According to reports, this temple was built by Sudhakar Swamy, a fan of Akkineni Nagarjuna living in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. He laid the foundation of this temple in 1997 after watching the film ‘Annamayya’. This temple was completed after a long wait of 22 years. Friends of Sudhakar Swami also helped in the construction of this temple. Nagarjuna’s fan had raised an amount of Rs 1 crore for the temple. The name of this temple is Sri Annamayya Swamy Temple.
Nagarjuna’s total net worth is 950 crores. He charges Rs 9 crore for a film. At the same time, he charges 2 crores for a brand endorsement. Apart from this, they charge Rs 5 crore per episode for TV shows. Nagarjuna lives in Hyderabad with his family. His house is in the prime location of Film Nagar, Hyderabad. Because of the grandeur of this house built on the Jubilee Hills of Hyderabad, Nagarjuna likes to stay here during the holidays.
According to media reports, the cost of this house is around Rs 42 crore. The 4,000-square-feet house has a gym, a large terrace with a worship room and a common area with a wooden floor, where Nagarjuna hosts parties.
Nagarjuna owns cars like the 1974 model Porsche 911 Turbo, Datsun 240Z and superbikes like the Honda CBR Fireblade. Nagarjuna’s garage is stocked with luxury cars, including the BMW 7 Series (Rs 1.7 crore), Audi A7 (Rs 90.5 lakh), BMW M6 (Rs 1.76 crore), Porsche Cayenne (Rs 2 crore). Nagarjuna has recently adopted 1080 acres of forest in Chengincherla Forest Block on the Warangal Highway in Hyderabad. 2 crores have also been donated for its maintenance.
He wanted a park named after his father Akkineni Nageswara Rao to be built in the Chengincherla forest area on the outskirts of Hyderabad. In February 2022, this initiative was discussed in the entire state. Apart from being an actor, Nagarjuna is also a film producer and businessman. In 1976, his father started a production house named Annapurna Studios. It is now owned by Nagarjuna and his brother Venkat. The 22-acre studio in Banjara Hills, in the posh area of Hyderabad, houses a variety of works. The cost of this studio is around 300 crores.
In 2013, Nagarjuna invested money in the Indian Badminton League. Nagarjuna along with Sunil Gavaskar has bought Mumbai Masters in the league. He was also the co-owner of Mahi Racing Team India along with Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Nagarjuna is also an owner of the Kerala Blasters Football Club.
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