Re: Actor Prabhakara Reddy is no more.
V. Chowdary Jampala (cjampala@dayton.net)
Wed, 27 Nov 1996 14:04:39 -0500 (EST)
On Tue, 26 Nov 1996, TRADE & BUSINESS CONTROLS 27-Nov-1996 0942 +0800 wrote:
> Prabhakar Reddy, character actor, who is famours for his roles as
> villian in Telugu films died. He was 61.
>
Prabhakara Reddy, a physician, made his debut in 1961 playing the
role of a psychaitrist in manjeeraa films' 'chivaraku migilEdi', a
memorable film directed by raamineeDu. PR had several plum roles in later
raamineeDu films - the role of 'kannama daasu' in palnaaTi yuddham was
one such.
> Actress Jaya Prada was introduced by him through naku Swatantram
> Vachindi though her debut was through Bhoomi Kosam. Her actual name
> was Lalita Rani. Prabhakar Reddy gave her the name of Jaya Prada
> which is the name of his banner.
>
Jayaprada's film debut was in anupama's bhoomikOsam, produced and
directed by Tilak. SreeSree - in a note in his anthology paaDavOyi
bhaarateeyuDaa - claims credit for discovering jayaprada and prabha and
introducing them to Tilak. (According to SreeSree, Tilak was the first
one to book prabha for a film role though her first film to be released
was navaSakti's neeDalEni aaDadi.). In bhoomikOsam, Jayaprada appears in the
role of chandramma in the ballad 'chellee chandramma' with ravikaant
playing her husband. She had a longer role in naakoo svatantram vaccindi,
which was released later.
> He was associated with IPTA and acted in some very good roles in
> films like "Harischandrudu" produced by Lion Visweswara Rao.
He was also active with the leftist student movements before
joining films, and the films produced by him show some of that idealogy.
In the latter days of his career, he longed for a more prominent
political role, but it didn't work out the way he wished.
Recently, he was involved in a controversy for a film he was
producing and directing (title escapes me now). It seems that he
approached the widow of cherabanDaraaju about using two of the late
writer's songs in his film. When rebuffed, Prabhakar Reddy ended up using
two very similar sounding songs written by an unknown, unidentified
writer. He is accussed of deliberate plagiarsim.
> Except comedy, Prabhakara Reddy did justice to all kind of roles.
>
Though he didn't do 'comedy', he was good at playing 'straight' man
for many comedy scenes (sommokaDidi sOkokaDidi come to mind immediately).
Regards. --- V. Chowdary Jampala