Who was the first Indian actor to receive a salary of 1 crore: In the late 80s and early 90s, there were few people who could be called superstars in the Indian film industry. The biggest name in it was Shehenshah Amitabh Bachchan. But the superstars of the same period were in the South, like Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Mohanlal and Mammootty. After that, Shahrukh took the place of Big B i.e. Amicheab Bachchan. But there was another name, which is not only equaling it in terms of popularity but also surpassing it in terms of box office earnings. In this article, we are talking about the same superstar who has appeared in 150 films so far but is now giving back to back flops.
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In 1992, The Week magazine was edited by the same Telugu superstar titled Chillaya ‘Bigger than Bachchan’. He is none other than South’s Chiranjeevi who is known not as a star but as a megastar.
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In 1992, The Week magazine was edited by the same Telugu superstar titled Chillaya ‘Bigger than Bachchan’. He is none other than South’s Chiranjeevi who is known not as a star but as a megastar.
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In the past too, Chiranjeevi became the first Indian actor to charge Rs 1 crore for a film. At that time the salary for his next film was Rs 1.25 crore. This was at a time when Amitabh Bachchan was charging Rs 75-80 lakh per film and Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan were charging even less.
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In the mid-90s, Kamal Haasan was paid Rs. Chiranjeevi remained India’s highest-paid actor for a few years until charging 1.5 crores. Then came Shah Rukh Khan who started charging upwards of Rs 2-3 crore per film in the late 90s and early 2000s. However, the arrival of King Khan did not affect Chiranjeevi’s stardom much.
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Born on 22 August 1955, Chiranjeevi started his career in 1978 with Punadhirallu and Pranam Kardu. Although his early roles brought him recognition among the audience, his craze died down a bit in the early 80s. His biggest success was Khaidi (1983), which was a commercial hit. After this he continued his streak of success in the action genre.
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By 1991, with the successes of Kodamsimham and Gang Leader, he was recognized as the ‘Boss of Telugu Cinema’. At the same time, the ‘megastar’ tag also came later in his career. Chiranjeevi remained a rising star of Telugu cinema into his 40s and broke all box office records with his 2002 film Indra, the highest-grossing Telugu film of all time. In 2008, after a decline in his career, he took a break from films to focus on politics, but is still active in films.
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In 2017, Chiranjeevi returned to acting in style with Kaidi No. 150, which became a blockbuster. After this he gave another hit in Se Ra Narasimha Reddy. However, after the epidemic, Chiranjeevi’s luck did not work out. His first film with son Ram Charan – Acharya – failed at the box office and then Godfather didn’t do well either.
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Then in 2023, he tasted success by starring in the year’s highest-grossing Telugu film Voltaire Veeraiya. But then his latest release Bhola Shankar turned out to be a disaster at the box office. However, even at the age of 68, Chiranjeevi remains one of the most sought-after actors in Telugu cinema.