JV Somayajulu the soft-spoken senior actor is known to people across the world as Shankara Sastry. Shankara Bharanma the one film directed by K Vishwanath gave him all the popularity which no other actor could get.
He has acted in many films directed by K Vishwanath. J. V. Somayajulu, also known as Jonnalagadda Venkata Somayajulu, was a Telugu film actor who has worked in the Telugu film industry.
He started his career as a government officer and due to his interest in movies, he moved to the cinema industry. His famous movies in Telugu are Abhinandana, Chakravarthy, Sankarabharanam etc.
For his performance in the movie Sankarabharanam, Forbes listed him amongst the 25 Greatest Acting Performances of Indian Cinema. He died on April 24, 2004, in Hyderabad.
He received many awards for Shankarabharanam the movie which was released the world over those days. He was very close to director Jandhyala and also K Vishwanath.
Jonnalagadda Venkata Somayajulu was born on 30 July 1920 in Lukalam Agraharam in Srikakulam of Andhra Pradesh. His father worked as an Inspector in the Prohibition and Excise department in Gudivada and other towns.
Somayajulu spent his childhood in Vijayanagaram and also participated in stage dramas when he was in Vijayanagaram.He was a government official and worked as a Deputy Collector for Mahabubnagar district.
His career spanned five decades in stage dramas, films and television. His passion for Gurazada Apparaos play, Kanyasulkam was such that he, along with his actor brother JV Ramana Murthy played it about 500 times in 45 years.
His exposition of the delightfully notorious character, “Ramappanthulu” in the play, has become legendary. The woman behind the success of Somayajulu was his mother Saradamma. Somayajulu had two sons and a daughter.
