Popular Telugu actor Amanchi Venkata Subrahmanyam no more

AVS,as he was popularly known,hailed from Tenali in Guntur district.

Starting his career as a journalist with Telugu daily Andhra Jyothy,he shot to fame with his debut film ‘Mister Pellam’,directed by Bapu,in which he played a memorable comic role as a stammer and won the state government’s Nandi award.

He acted in more than 400 films and also directed four Telugu movies and produced two.

Though he mainly essayed comedy roles,AVS also played character roles and comic villains in a few films.

He acted with all the leading stars of Telugu film industry like Chiranjeevi,Nagarjuna,Balakrishna,Venkatesh,and also the current generation.

He had been general secretary of Telugu Movie Artists Association three times.

AVS joined Telugu Desam Party in late 1990s and was its spokesman and executive secretary,apart from heading its cultural wing.

In 2008,he underwent a liver transplantation when his daughter donated a portion of her liver to save him from a critical condition. He recovered and led a healthy life for

over four years.

This year,however,the ailment resurfaced and he was admitted to Global Hospital here last week and put on ventilator support.

As his condition deteriorated,doctors declared his case as “hopeless” and asked the family to take him home this evening,family sources said. He breathed his last an hour after being taken home.

TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu expressed grief over AVS’s death. Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy,Union Minister of State for Tourism Chiranjeevi,Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar,Lok Satta Party president N Jayaprakash Narayan,TDP senior leader Nandamuri Harikrishna and others also mourned AVS’s death.

Several of his co-stars went to his residence at Manikonda here to pay homage.