Akkineni Nageswara Rao (born September 20, 1924 at Venkatarghavapuram, Dist Krishna, Andhra Pradesh), also known as ANR, is a film actor from Gudivada Andhra Pradesh. He is one of the first fully commercial Telugu Cinema heroes. His films include a diverse range of genres which include mythological, folk tale, Social, adventure and drama. He acted with NTR who is one of the greatest actors of India for alomost 40 years. They both called each other as brother.Nageswara Rao was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1990 for life time contribution to Indian cinema. He is also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.
He is the first person to cause the shift of Telugu film industry to Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh from Chennai, Tamilnadu in an attempt to bring together the mother tongue of industry and industry itself. Soon after the move to Hyderabad, Nageswara Rao founded his own production house, Annapoorna Studios located in Banjara Hill.
He is noted for his class roles in the mid 60's. His younger son Nagarjuna ia also an actor on Telugu.
Even at the age of 82 +, Dr. Akkineni Nageswara Rao still acts. He is specifically remembered in Andhra Pradesh for his biographical roles like Dr. Chakravarthey, Devadasu, Vipranarayana, Chakradhari, Tukaram, Kalidasu, Jayadeva, Tenali Rama Krishna, Kshethrayya etc. Moreover he is popular as hero of popular fiction (Novels) which were made into films e.g. Doctor Chakravarthi, Prema Nagar, Secretary etc.
Akkineni's Premabhishekam movie is one of the biggest Industry Hit movies in Tollywood. Premabhishekam has an amazing 533 days run in Hyderabad City which is still highest run in a city for telugu movies. Premabhishekam is the only film in telugu that went for 365+ days run directly.
