J.V. Somayajulu who was widely known as Shankara Shastri passed away

Veteran film artiste J. V. Somayajulu (Jonnalagadda Venkata Somayajulu) better known as 'Sankara Sastry' of Telugu super hit Shankarabharanam died of cardiac arrest in Hyderabad last night at his 76, leaving behind his wife, two sons and a daughter.

Born in August 1928 in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh, Somayajulu became a renowned stage artiste. He acted in the play 'Kanyasulkam' for 500 times in his career with his brother J V Ramana Murthy for 45 years. In early 1980s K Vishwanath, director of Shankarabharanam was searching for an actor to play the role that has the attributes of a pure Brahmin and a music exponent. S P Balasubramanyam who observed the talent of Somayajulu as an old man role in 'Raa Raa Krishnaiah' (1979) recommended him to director K. Vishwanath and Somayajulu was taken for that role of 'Sankara Sastry' in Shankarabharanam where he won the national award for his sublime performance.

He acted in about 150 films in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi. His performance as 'Ajja' in Ravichandran's Kannada film Ondagona Baa received great appreciation while Abhirami's father role in Upendra's Raktha Kanneeru was another recent Kannada film of his. He got his first commercial break as an actor in films after his 50's. Allari Pillalu, Nelavanka, Rowdy Alludu, Swathimutyam, Vijeta, Thyagayya, Saptapadi, Vamsa Vruksham etc are a few Telugu movies of his. He also acted in a Hindi film 'Pratibandh'. Somayajulu, was retired as head of the department of theatre arts in Telugu University.

We at viggy.com condole the death of Somayajulu.