Veteran producer Kotipalli Raghava dies of heart attack at 105

Veteran producer Kotipalli Raghava, who produced some classic movies under his banner Pratap Art Productions in the 70s and 80s, died of heart attack in the wee hours of Tuesday. His last rites will be performed today.

Born in the year 1913, K Raghava had a tiff with his father and ran away from home when he was just eight years old. He started his film career as a trolley puller on the sets in a Kolkata film studio. He is considered as the grand old man of Tollywood, as he forayed into films even before the first Telugu movie was made in 1931. He worked as assistant director and stunt master before turning a producer.

K Raghava worked as production executive for quite some time and earned lot of insight into filmmaking. He was impressed with K Balachander's play Major Chandrakanth and he decided adapt it big screen. He joined hands with producer Ekambareswara Rao bankroll this first movie titled Sukha Dukhalu, which was a hit at box office. Then onwards there was no look back for this producer.

Kotipalli Raghava produced 27 movies in his career spanning 9 decades and 25 of them were blockbusters. Tata manavadu Samsaram Sagaram, Thoorpu Padamara and Intlo Ramayya Veedhilo Krishnayya are some of the blockbusters produced by Raghava. He has witnessed several transformation in the Telugu film industry in 90 years.

Raghava introduced veterans like Dasari Narayana Rao, Rao Gopal Rao, SP Balasubramaniam, Bhanu Chander and Suman to the Telugu film industry. He was a recipient of the prestigious Akkineni Lifetime achievement award and Raghupathi Venkaiah awards.