Krishna rode risks on way to superstardom
HYDERABAD: The death of Ghattamaneni Krishna in the early hours of Tuesday brought to an end an era in Tollywood. He was, perhaps, the last representative of a generation in the Telugu film industry that stood for commitment, dedication, and discipline.
Known to legions of his fans as Superstar, he was not just an actor but also a trendsetter — as a director, producer and promoter of a film studio in Hyderabad. Above all, he was a good human being who never hesitated to help his co-stars when they were in crisis.
A Padma Bhushan recipient, Krishna was not afraid of taking risks. At a time when nobody dared to enter the dense forests of Visakhapatnam, Krishna spent several days along with his crew in the woods, braving threats from Maoists and wild animals to produce his 1974 magnum opus Alluri Sitarama Raju, a biopic on the revolutionary freedom fighter. He travelled to all the places where Sitarama Raju fought a guerrilla war against the British to make the biopic more realistic.
Similarly, when Krishna produced the 1977 movie Kurukshetram, based on the Mahabharata, he took the crew to Kurukshetra in Haryana to shoot the war
scenes.
His experiments in the film at a time of no computer-generated graphics were unparalleled in the Telugu industry.
Another example of Krishna’s penchant for risk-taking was the remake of Bengali classic Devdas. At the time, no one could imagine touching the story again because the classic had already been made in multiple languages. Yet, Krishna showed gumption to go ahead with the same story; though his film was not a commercial success, it stands testimony to his taste for good stories and his iconic portrayals.
Krishna was never considered a failure, despite some of his films tanking at the box office. He always remained non-controversial. He lost his son Ramesh Babu in January this year and his wife Indira in September.