The entertainment magazines Filmfare and India Today named him "Bigger than Bachchan", a reference to Bollywood’s Amitabh Bachchan.[4] In 1987, he became the first south Indian actor to be invited to attend the 59th Academy Awards ceremony.[5][6] News magazine The Week hailed him as "The new money machine".[7] The film made Chiranjeevi the highest paid actor in India at the time, catapulting him to hit the cover pages of noted national weekly magazines in India.[8] He was paid a remuneration of INR1.25 crores for the 1992 film Aapad Bandhavudu.[9] In 2002, Chiranjeevi was given the Samman Award for the Highest Income Tax Payer for the assessment year 1999-2000 by the Minister of State for Finance, Government of India.[10] A poll conducted in Andhra Pradesh by the English news channel CNN-IBN in 2006 named that Chiranjeevi the most popular star of the Telugu Film Industry.[11][12] The poll also revealed that Vishnuvardhan, Rajinikanth and Mohanlal were the most popular stars of the Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam film industries respectively. In 2013, he inaugurated the Incredible India Exhibition, a joint participation of the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting at the 66th Cannes Film Festival.[13][14] He also represented Incredible India at the 14th International Indian Film Academy Awards ceremony held in Macau.[15]
In a film career spanning more than thirty years, Chiranjeevi has starred in 149 feature films. In 1987, he starred in Swayam Krushi, which was screened at the Moscow International Film Festival.[16] In 1988, he co-produced Rudraveena, which won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration.[17] He has won four state Nandi Awards and ten Filmfare Awards South. Chiranjeevi was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, for his contributions towards Indian cinema. In 2006, he was presented with an honorary doctorate from Andhra University.[18] In 2013, IBN LIVE named him as one of "The men who changed the face of the Indian Cinema".[19]
Chiranjeevi founded the Chiranjeevi Charitable Foundation, established in 1998, which is involved in humanitarian activities. In 2008, he entered politics by forming the Praja Rajyam Party. In the 2009 Andhra Pradesh elections, Chiranjeevi contested from his native places, Palakollu and Tirupati. He was defeated by the Congress party candidate in Palakollu and was elected as a member of the State Assembly from the Tirupati constituency. He led the Praja Rajyam Party to emerge as the third largest party during the same election. Later, in February 2011, his Praja Rajyam Party merged into the Indian National Congress.
The entertainment magazines Filmfare and India Today named him "Bigger than Bachchan", a reference to Bollywood’s Amitabh Bachchan.[4] In 1987, he became the first south Indian actor to be invited to attend the 59th Academy Awards ceremony.[5][6] News magazine The Week hailed him as "The new money machine".[7] The film made Chiranjeevi the highest paid actor in India at the time, catapulting him to hit the cover pages of noted national weekly magazines in India.[8] He was paid a remuneration of INR1.25 crores for the 1992 film Aapad Bandhavudu.[9] In 2002, Chiranjeevi was given the Samman Award for the Highest Income Tax Payer for the assessment year 1999-2000 by the Minister of State for Finance, Government of India.[10] A poll conducted in Andhra Pradesh by the English news channel CNN-IBN in 2006 named that Chiranjeevi the most popular star of the Telugu Film Industry.[11][12] The poll also revealed that Vishnuvardhan, Rajinikanth and Mohanlal were the most popular stars of the Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam film industries respectively. In 2013, he inaugurated the Incredible India Exhibition, a joint participation of the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting at the 66th Cannes Film Festival.[13][14] He also represented Incredible India at the 14th International Indian Film Academy Awards ceremony held in Macau.[15]In a film career spanning more than thirty years, Chiranjeevi has starred in 149 feature films. In 1987, he starred in Swayam Krushi, which was screened at the Moscow International Film Festival.[16] In 1988, he co-produced Rudraveena, which won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration.[17] He has won four state Nandi Awards and ten Filmfare Awards South. Chiranjeevi was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, for his contributions towards Indian cinema. In 2006, he was presented with an honorary doctorate from Andhra University.[18] In 2013, IBN LIVE named him as one of "The men who changed the face of the Indian Cinema".[19]Chiranjeevi founded the Chiranjeevi Charitable Foundation, established in 1998, which is involved in humanitarian activities. In 2008, he entered politics by forming the Praja Rajyam Party. In the 2009 Andhra Pradesh elections, Chiranjeevi contested from his native places, Palakollu and Tirupati. He was defeated by the Congress party candidate in Palakollu and was elected as a member of the State Assembly from the Tirupati constituency. He led the Praja Rajyam Party to emerge as the third largest party during the same election. Later, in February 2011, his Praja Rajyam Party merged into the Indian National Congress.
