Celebrities pay homage to Dr. Akkineni Nageswara Rao

'Tragedy King' ANR, who has set a benchmark to Telugu Cinema with 1953 'Devadas' is no more. The 90 year actor took his last breath on early morning of Wednesday, January 22, 2014 at 2.02 AM after battling cancer for sometime now. His body was shifted to Annapurna Studios for fans and celebrities to pay homage. The 90 year old actor is survived by two sons (Venkat Akkineni and Nagarjuna Akkineni) and three daughters (Satyavathi, Naga Susheela and Saroja). While his grandsons Sumanth, Sushanth and Naga Chaitanya have already established themselves in the acting profession, Nagarjuna-Amala’s son Akhil is set to make his acting debut this year. ANR's last film 'Manam' costarring his son Nagarjuna and grandson Naga Chaitanya is likely to arrive theaters this summer.

Thousands flocked Annapurna Studios to pay their respects and have a last glimpse of the legend. Akkineni family members Venkat Akkineni, Nagarjuna, Naga Susheela, Sathyavathi, Saroja, Sumanth, Sushanth, Naga Chaitanya, Akhil and Amala were by the side of the actor’s body.

Chief Minister M Kiran Kumar Reddy, Governor ESL Narasimhan, former Chief Minister and TDP President Nara Chandra Babu Naidu, YSR Congress President Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, Lok Satta President Jayaprakash Narayan, Central Ministers Daggubati Purandeeswari & Chiranjeevi, D K Aruna, Geeta Reddy, Bandaru Dattatreya, Nannapaneni Rajakumari, Nara Lokesh, etc., visited Annapurna Studios and paid homage to ANR.

Entire film fraternity that includes Darsakaratna Dasari Narayana Rao, D Ramanaidu, K Raghavendra Rao, T Subba Ramireddy, Ramoji Rao, Krishna, Mohan Babu, Hari Krishna, Jayasudha, Jayapradha, Jamuna, Vanisri, P Suseela, Geetanjali, Balakrishna’s wife Vasundara Devi, Radhika, Sarath Kumar, Prabhu, SS Rajamouli, Trivikram Srinivas, Mahesh Babu, Venkatesh, Pawan Kalyan, NTR, Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Allu Arjun, Allu Sirish, Srikanth, Gopichand, Rajasekhar, Jeevitha, Suman, Kalyan Ram, D Suresh Babu, SP Balasubrahmaniam, Parachuri Brothers, Tammareddy Bharadwaja, Ashwini Dutt, Anushka, Tabu, Roja, Hema, Allari Naresh, Nithin, Tarun, Navdeep, Varun Sandesh, Vishnu, Manchu Lakshmi, Prabha, Saritha, Kavitha, Rama Prabha, Suma, Brahmanandam, Sekhar Kammula, Srinu Vaitla, Sukumar, Gemini Kiran, Dil Raju, Allu Aravind, Kaikala Satyanarayana, Giribabu, M M Keeravani, Sirivennela Seetarama Sastry, Shivaji, Shivaji Raja, Aali, Venu Madhav, Siva Krishna, Duvvasi Mohan and several others also visited Annapurna Studios to mourn the loss of the 90 year old legend.

The last rites will be held at Annapurna Studios in Hyderabad on Thursday, January 23, 2014. The body will be kept at Annapurna Studios from 7AM to 11 AM for fans to pay their last respects, followed by the Anthima Yatra from starting from TDP Bhavan at 12.30AM through Basavatarakam Hospital to Film Nagar and again reach Annapurna Studios at 4 PM through Jubilee Hills check post. The legendary actor will be given a gun salute by the Andhra Pradesh government tomorrow evening as announced by MAA President Murali Mohan. On this occasion the Telugu Film Industry and theaters will be closed as respect to the veteran actor.