Veteran Telugu actor Chalapathi Rao no more

Veteran actor Chalapathi Rao passed away at his residence here, family sources said on Sunday. He was 78. They said the septuagenarian actor died on Saturday night. He acted in over 600 films portraying various characters, industry sources said.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao expressed condolences on the demise of Chalapathi Rao. The actor's son Ravi Babu is also an actor, director, and producer in the Telugu film industry. "It is very sad that so many of our people are going away," producer D Suresh who visited the bereaved family said.

Rao acted in several Telugu movies as a supporting actor and villain in the films of N T Rama Rao, Krishna, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Chiranjeevi and Venkatesh. Actor and Jana Sena party chief Pawan Kalyan, in a statement, condoled Chalapathi Rao's death.

He is well-known for his films such as Yamagola, Yugapurushudu, Justice Chaudhary, Bobbili Puli, Ninne Pelladata, and Allari. The Chief Minister conveyed his deepest condolences to the bereaved family members and said that Chalapathi Rao, who acted in hundreds of movies in diversified roles, made his own mark on the silver screen, a release from the CMO said.

Chief Minister Rao expressed grief that the passing away of Chalapathi Rao, who worked with three generations of actors as an actor and producer, is a big loss to the film industry. Veteran Telugu actor Kaikala Satyanarayana, known for his villain and other character roles, passed away here on December 23.