Superstar is not a word that someone wanted to tag along with Krishna, in 1980's. He earned it as people gave him that tag and even the tag of Nata-Sekhara was given to him. But Superstar meant the man who could entertain masses without any doubt. It meant a man who understood stardom and who knew the pulse of the audiences. Still, Krishna had more number of films that did not work at the box office or became troll worthy later on in his career. Why? How come a man who got the name Superstar can go so wrong?

Well, we have to understand how Krishna used to operate quite contrast to Mahesh. Krishna entered films after he got selected by ANR, Ramana, Adurthi Subba Rao to star in Tene Manasulu - a film starring all youngsters by director, Adurthi. Krishna saw what an actor can achieve in terms of fame and wanted to experience, it.

Hence, he tried his luck. His looks, his style were different from NTR and ANR. Other heroes at that time used to try and copy them but he was completely different from the outset. He was trained in acting by Adurthi and his team. Still he looked little confused in the film which 1964 audiences did not care about. They liked the story and they liked the cast.

Slowly, he improved with each film and accepted everything that came his way. He acted as second lead in big star films and in cameos too. But he got youth on his side with James Bond style Agent Gopi movies and as 117, he entered many with his different attitude and style. At first, Krishna was never considered as an actor who could challenge big stars ever.

Krishna understood what he is lacking and started to develop in those areas. He had continuous flow of hits and producers used to make movies with him but he wanted to take his market to next level. How? He decided to start a production house all by himself and Padmalaya Studios was established. His brothers took care of his dates, production works.

He reinvented his image with Mosagallaku Mosagadu and next, Pandanti Kapuram became huge hit at the start of 1970's - giving rise to new image for Krishna as an established hero. He still did not become a star which he himself changed with Devudu Chesina Manushulu and Alluri Seetharamaraju movies. Devudu Chesina Manushulu had NTR and him, sharing screen space as heroes on same level. This brought him huge recognition at box office, even though he let NTR dominate him in the film.

But the actor challenged same NTR with Alluri Seetharamaraju, at least how NTR saw it at the time. This movie took Krishna into masses like never before. His 100th film made him a star. He never had to look back at how his films will perform at box office after that. All he had to manage was to make good films and the box office used to be set on fire with his dialogue delivery. He improved himself so much that once which was his weakness - his body language and his voice, became his strengths and his identity.

Directors had to create good characters that explore his comic timing, use his voice and give his style, attitude, energy ample scope. When the mix was right movies used to create records. Eenadu without any star heroine or songs or even lengthy action sequences became a blockbuster just on the shoulders of Krishna's ability to deliver long dialogues and monologues in his own style.

He used to take such risks all by himself and decided to enter Hindi film production as a producer. Jeetendra became his pet hero and he produced films like Himmatwala, Mawaali, Takkar that became huge blockbusters. Actually, such big hits helped him try new things as well. He dared to make Simhasanam on a huge scale in his own direction as he could count on Hindi market as well to recover the budgets. The movie did not just recover, it smashed records.

Still, he never said No to producers who came and asked him to star in their production house. He never made any huge demands too. If their budget was just 10 lakhs, he did not say improve it to one crore or at least 25 - 35 lakhs just because of his star status. He agreed to do them and he used his own production house films to push for his big dreams. The biggest budget film that he did for outside production house in 1980's was Agniparvatham produced by Ashwini Dutt and the movie created box office records.

With emergence of Chiranjeevi as a star in 1980's and young heroes taking charge, he had to see a downfall like never before in his career. No.1 film resurrected him for a while and after that somehow his films, his acting style lost the old vigour. Even he himself directed and presented him in a laughable way. But in any case, as an actor, as a star and as a legend his growth in Cinema is a dictionary to new comers. A dictionary holds the ways to improve and even shows right meanings too.

Hence, if someone can learn from him to take risk without fear and to be friendly with producers, directors irrespective of box office success and to maintain sort of courage to stand by their beliefs, any actor can dream of becoming a Superstar. Happy Birthday to original and first Superstar of Telugu Cinema - Ghattamaneni Sivaramakrishna alias Krishna.