NTR (The Legend of Legends)

NTR was born in a farmer’s family at Nimmakuru, Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh on 28th of May 1923 at 4.32pm. His mother wished to name his son as Krishna, but his uncle named him as Taraka Ramudu, which later confined as Taraka Rama Rao. His parents Nandamuri Lakshmiah Chowdhury and Venkata Ramamma least imagined that this child was going to be uprise as an remarkable persona in his future and going to come across a golden thrown for him in the Andhra Pradesh history.

In spite of being a farmers family NTR's parents respected education. NTR'S basic education was finished at his native place Nimmakuru. When his uncle Ramaiah adopted NTR, he was taken to Vijayawada concerning his further education. NTR had joined in sixth class at Gandhi Municipal School at Vijayawada. When his parents met with a bad patch frantically, NTR used to help them by tying the milk cans on both sides of his cycle and distributing them to the hotels and dwellers of farer places from their house. It was his first taste of the dignity of labour. He had undertaken so many things to earn the daily bread for their family. He ran a small provision store and worked as a clerk. In spite of all these things he remained a good student in his school and later in college. While he was studying Intermediate at S.R.R. College at Visakha Patnam, Viswanatha Satyanarayana who was the head of the Telugu dept there asked NTR to play a female role where NTR reluctantly agreed to play the role but having his moustache! That incidence fetched him the nickname meesaala naagamma.

He got married to his maternal uncle’s daughter Basavatharakam in May 1942. Because of the distraction caused by marriage, he failed in Intermediate twice. NTR completed his graduation in the year 1947. He later passed in the Madras Service Commission Exam – out of 1,100 members only seven were selected and Rama Rao was one among them. B.A. Subba Rao, the famous film producer happened to see NTR's photograph at L.V. Prasad. He called up NTR to Madras and fixed him up as the hero for his film ‘Palleturi Pilla’, without any make up test or screen test at all. But it was the film ‘Mana Desam’, for which Rama Rao faced the camera for the first time, in the year 1949. NTR was offered a small role as a sub inspector in that film. His first lead role was in the film ‘Palleturi Pilla’, in 1950 followed by L. V. Prasad’s ‘Shavukar’ in the same year.

Stardom came to him with K.V. Reddy’s film ‘Paathala Bhairavi’ (1951), which was followed by B.N. Reddy’s ‘Malleeswari’ (1951), L.V. Prasad’s ‘Pelli Chesi Choodu’ (1952) and K. Kameswara Rao’s ‘Chandra Haaram’. In 1958, A.V.M. Chettiyar determined to make his film ‘Bhoo Kailas’ under K. Shanker’s direction. He preferred the fine-looking young man N.T. Rama Rao for the role of Ravana Brahma. His first mythological film P. Pullaiah’s ‘Sri Venkateswara Mahatyam’ (1960) was a tremendous hit. He played five roles in the film ‘Sri Madvirata Parvam’. In his 44 years of film career, Rama Rao had acted in about 297 films, out of which 280 are Telugu, 15 Tamil and 4 Hindi films. 44 of his films were mythological, 13 were historical, 55 fictional and 185 films were social. 140 of his films celebrated hundred days and 33 films celebrated silver Jubilees while six of his films ran more than 50 weeks. For his film ‘Maya Bazar’ for Lord Krishna’s role, which was released in 1956, he took Rs.7, 500/-, which was said to be the highest remuneration in those days.

NTR directed his first film ‘Sitha Rama Kalyanam’ in 1961 under his own banner N.A. T. films which was managed by his brother Trivikrama Rao. In that film Rama Rao played das Ravana Brahma in such way no other actor could imagine doing that. He directed himself in a triple role in ‘Daana Veera Soora Karna’ in 1977 he also directed the film ‘Sri Rama Pattabhishekam’ in 1978. His social films ‘Adavi Ramudu’ and ‘Yamagola’ were huge box- office hits.

He made his way into politics in 1982 by setting up his own regional party, ‘Telugu Desam Party’ (TDP) aspiring to shield the pride of the Telugu People all over the world. He had beaten Congress-I in the first elections and became the non Congress Chief Minister for the first time in India. No other politician entered into politics within nine months of their entry into politics. He had brought in the 'slab system' in film field in 1984. The system facilitated the producers as well as the distributors largely. He was the chief minister of the state till 1989 when his party was discomfited. He was elected to be the Chairman of ‘National Front Party’.

As the Time grabs everybody to its cold lap, Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, a great legend died in 1996 at the age of 73 leaving no other person to replace his place. He is not among us physically he remains unaltered in the hearts of millions of people of Andhra Pradesh.