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Konidela Shiva Shankara Vara Prasad born on (August 22, 1955), more popularly known as Chiranjeevi, is a popular Telugu film actor and is fondly known by Telugu fans as Mega Star.

Background

He was born in Mogalthur, West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, India to Konidela Venkata Rao and Anjana Devi. Chiranjeevi has two brothers (Nagendra Babu and Pawan Kalyan) and two sisters (Vijaya Durga and Madhavi). He has been married to Surekha (daughter of Allu Ramalingaih) since February 20, 1980. Chiranjeevi has one son, Ram Charan Teja and two daughters Sushmita and Srija.

Career

Chiranjeevi debuted with Pranam Khareedu. After playing a series of negative and minor roles, he got his first breakthrough with Khaidi in the direction of A. Kodandarami Reddy. A series of good performances in movies such as Rudraveena, Challenge and Chantabbai established him as a great actor by the end of 1980s. In 2002, Chiranjeevi starred in Indra, which was a success and was also the highest grossing movie in Tollywood at the time. He also won the Filmfare Best Actor Award (Telugu) and the Nandi Award for Best Actor for his performance in Indra. His most recent film was Stalin, cast opposite Trisha Krishnan and in the direction of A. R. Murugadoss, writer of Chiranjeevi's earlier film Tagore.

His next upcoming film will be Shankardada Zindabad, which is also a remake of Lage Raho Munnabhai. Choreographer-turned-director Prabhu Deva will be directing it.

Charity and Services

On October 2, 1998, he founded the Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust (CCT), which includes Chiranjeevi Blood and Eye Banks. It is the state's largest recipient of Blood and Eye Donations. The Blood Bank of the CCT helped over 80,000 people and the Eye Bank has helped about 1000 people in the state of Andhra Pradesh since its opening.

So far Around 3.5 lakh people pledged their eyes to CCT so far.1600 people got eye sight because of CCT .CCT also won ‘Best Voluntary Blood Bank Award’ by the AP State Govt for the past 4 years.

On June 10, 2006, The President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam, inaugurated the Chiranjeevi Charitable Foundation (CCF) at the Jubilee Hills Check post in Hyderabad.

Awards

In January 2006, Chiranjeevi was honored with the Padma Bhushan., the third highest civilian award in India. In November 2006, Chiranjeevi was awarded with a honorary doctorate[5] by Andhra University for his services to the Telugu film industry and for his social work.

Trivia

* Chiranjeevi won Southern Filmfare Award (Best Actor) for seven years
* The dubbed version of Kodama Simham, The hunters of the Indian treasure, introduced Chiranjeevi to foreign spectators.
* Was in VH1 top 20 webjunk for Golimar

Labels: Chianjeevi, Profiles