Kota Srinivas Rao, one of the legendary stars of South Indian cinema, ruled the hearts of the audience for several decades with his brilliant acting. The actor died at the age of 83 on Sunday, which has caused a wave of mourning in the entire entertainment world. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has expressed condolences by tweeting and called it a huge loss to the cinema industry. Andhra Pradesh Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan arrived at Rao's residence and offered his condolences to the family.
Several other political and film personalities took to their X profile to pay tribute to the late actor:
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu
Mahesh Babu
Ravi Teja
SS Rajamouli
Ram Gopal Varma
Worked in about 750 films
Kota Srinivasa Rao was a big name in the Telugu film industry. He made his debut in 1978 with the film 'Pranam Khareedu'. In his acting career spanning more than 40 years, he worked in more than 750 films. Kota Srinivasa Rao made his Bollywood debut in 1987. His first film was Pratighatan. Apart from this, he appeared in films like Sarkar, Darwaza Band Rakho, Darling, Luck, Rakta Charitra, Rakta Charitra 2 and Baaghi.
He was also awarded the Nandi Award 9 times for playing the role of villain, supporting actor and comedian in these films. In 2015, the actor was awarded the Padma Shri. His major films were 'Dammu', 'Son of Satyamurthy' and 'Dangerous Khiladi'. Apart from Telugu, Rao had done many films in Tamil, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam cinema.
Rao also served in politics. From 1999 to 2004, he was an MLA from Vijayawada East in Andhra Pradesh. After suffering from health-related problems, the veteran actor took his last breath on Sunday, two days after his 83rd birthday.
