Chiranjeevi, the megastar of Indian cinema, is celebrating his 66th birthday on August 22. The king of Tollywood, Chiranjeevi, in his career that has been spanning over four decades, has acted in movies of multifarious genres, and he gained the name Megastar for his spectacular performances in commercial mass masala flicks.
Even though Chiranjeevi's life is an open book, even his fans may not be aware of certain things in his career.
Chiranjeevi's 1992 film Gharana Mogudu, directed by K.Raghavendra Rao, is the first south Indian film to collect over ₹10 crore share at the box office. The film was screened at the 1993 International Film Festival of India in the mainstream section. It made Chiranjeevi the highest-paid actor in India, catapulting him to the cover pages of national weekly magazines in India. The entertainment magazines Filmfare and India Today named him "Bigger than Bachchan," a reference to Bollywood's Amitabh Bachchan News magazine. The week hailed him as "the new money machine."He was paid ₹1.25 crore, the highest fee for any Indian actor, for the 1992 film Aapadbandavudu. In 2002, Chiranjeevi was given the Samman Award for being the highest Income Taxpayer for the 1999–2000 assessment year by the Minister of State for Finance. A poll conducted by CNN-IBN in 2006 named Chiranjeevi the most popular star of the Telugu film industry.
International Business Times presents you with the list of five lesser-known facts about the Tollywood megastar.
Chiranjeevi was invited to the Oscars
In 1987, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) invited Chinranjeevi for the Oscars award ceremony. It should be noted that Chiranjeevi was the first South Indian actor to achieve this feat.
When India Today described 'Chiranjeevi bigger than Bachchan'
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Amitabh Bachchan was the uncrowned King of the Indian film industry, and his fan following across the nation was unmatchable. In 1992, Chiranjeevi's film Gharana Mogudu took the box office to a storm and grossed over Rs 10 crore. In the same year, in one of their features, India Today described Chiranjeevi, 'bigger than Bachchan.'
Remuneration of over one crore in 1992
For acting in the 1992 movie Aapadbandhavudu directed by K Viswanath, Chiranjeevi was paid Rs 1.25 crore. For the first time, a Telugu actor had been paid such a huge amount for acting in a movie, and at the same time, Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest brand in Bollywood, was charging Rs 1 crore per film.
Chiranjeevi's films were dubbed to English.
Chiranjeevi's 1990 film Kodama Simham was dubbed and released in English, which was rare in Indian movies. The English version of this movie was named Hunters of the Indian treasure. Chiranjeevi's other films, Pasivadi Pranam and Swayamkrushi, were dubbed and released in Russian during those days.
The Hollywood movie signed by Chiranjeevi
In 1999, Chiranjeevi signed a Hollywood movie named The Return of the Thief of Baghdad. However, the project was shelved for unknown reasons.
He won three Andhra Pradesh State Nandi Awards, Raghupathi Venkaiah Award, and nine Filmfare Awards South in a film career spanning thirty-nine years. In 2006, he was honored with the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian award, for his contributions to Indian cinema and was presented with an honorary doctorate from Andhra University. He served as the Minister of Tourism for the Government of India from 2012 and 2014.
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