Nostalgic Nuggets: When Dimple Kapadia made a re-entry in a Dasari film

With an output of around 140 multi-lingual films in a career span of 42 years, beginning in 1972 and the last 14 years seeing 10 of them in the new millennium, 72-year-old Dasari Narayana Rao, born on May 4, (1942-2014) was a formidable personality till he lived. Like many of his contemporaries, he wore many hats other than that of being a film director. That included being an actor, producer, lyricist, a politician and a media baron during his long stint in public life.

Beginning with a film starring the iconic S V Ranga Rao – Thatha Manavadu – in 1972, Dasari kept a steady momentum, helming many hit films with the top heroes of Telugu and Tamil cinema in the 1970s and 1980s. Other than the top two, NTR and ANR in Telugu, the other A-listers too like Sobhan Babu, Krishnam Raju etc too were featured in his hit films during that golden phase.

Beginning with a re-make of his Telugu hit titled ' Swarg Narak' in 1978, he directed 13 films in 15 years in Hindi. This included one film with Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth too. In one of his remakes, he re-launched Dimple Kapadia (Zakhmi Sher) who came back to the Hindi film industry after a break and a disturbed marital life.

His final years were marked for a stint in Telugu journalism when he launched a newspaper ' Udayam' and went on to be a cabinet minister in the Manmohan Singh government.