Vedantam Raghavaiah


Vedantam Raghavaiah was an Indian film choreographer, method actor, Kuchipudi exponent, musician, director and producer known for his works in Telugu cinema, Telugu theatre, and Tamil cinema. Raghavaiah was an accomplished Kuchipudi dancer, who was awarded "Bharata Kala Prapurna" in dance by the Andhra Pradesh government. Raghavaiah served in the committee of the First General Council of the "Andhra Pradesh Sangeeth Nataka Academy" that represented Dance and was also nominated in 1964 as the President of the "National Dance Festival". Noted dancer, Bhagavathula Yagna Narayana Sarma, Sangeet Natak Akademi winner was trained under Raghavaiah's Fellowship.
Raghavaiah was the co-owner of the film production house "Vinodha Pictures", starting his career as a dance master, he choreographed for films such as Raithu Bidda, and Swarga Seema, which was screened at the "Vietnam Film Association". Regarded as one of the pioneers of romantic tales, Raghavaiah, made his directorial and production debut with Stree Sahasamu. He then directed successful films such as Devadasu, Annadata, Anarkali, Chiranjeevulu, Bhale Ramudu, Prema Pasam, Suvarna Sundari, Rahasyam. As an actor he starred in Mohini Rukmanigada, Garuda Garvabhangam and Raksharekha.

Film craft and Devadasu

His directorial Devadasu, which was the first Telugu adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel, and Devadas was the second Tamil adaptation of the same, following the 1937 Devadas directed by and starring P. V. Rao. During pre-production Akkineni Nageswara Rao, who portrayed the titular character, later recalled that Vedantam, being a Kuchipudi dance exponent and an experienced stage actor, used to enact the scenes before the actors, thereby making their job easy. He recalled that the director shot him only at night so that he could give the character a "drunken, droopy" look. Those night-time shots were filmed over 50 days. The final length of both versions was. Devadasu and Devadas are regarded as among the most successful films in Telugu and Tamil cinema respectively. Both versions were critically and commercially successful. It has since achieved cult status, with terms and phrases from the film being widely cited. In April 2013, CNN-News18 included the film in its list of "100 greatest Indian films of all time".

Theater and dance

Raghavaiah was born in Kuchipudi, Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh on 8 June 1919 to Vedantam Ramayya and Annapurnamma. He had six daughters and a son including, actress Shubha. He was married to actress Suryaprabha, the sister of actress Pushpavalli who was partner to Gemini Ganeshan, and their daughter Rekha is a Hindi actress.

Selected filmography

;As actor and choreographer
;As director