Amala Akkineni

Amala Akkineni (née Mukherjee) is an Indian actress, Bharatanatyam dancer, and animal welfare activist.[2] She has predominantly worked in Tamil films, in addition to Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada-language films. She was a leading actress in the Tamil film industry in the late 1980s and has appeared in many blockbusters in Tamil and other languages. She has won two Filmfare Awards South, namely Best Actress – Malayalam for the 1991 film Ulladakkam[3] and Best Supporting Actress – Telugu for the 2012 film Life Is Beautiful.[4] Amala is the co-founder of Blue Cross of Hyderabad,[5] a non-government organisation (NGO) in Hyderabad, India, which works towards the welfare of animals and preservation of animal rights in India.[6][7]

Amala was born in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) to a Bengali Indian Navy officer and an Irish mother.[8][9] She has a brother.[10] Amala holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Bharatanatyam from Kalakshetra college of fine arts, Madras now Chennai.[11] She gave many live performances worldwide.[12][13] She was subsequently persuaded to join films by T. Rajender, who visited her home with his wife Usha and convinced her mother to let her act in the film, which would be a classical film featuring her Bharatanatyam dancing.[14]

Amala married Telugu actor Nagarjuna on 11 June 1992 and the couple has a son, actor Akhil Akkineni born in 1994. She is the step-mother of actor Naga Chaitanya.[15] They currently live in Hyderabad.[13]

Amala made her debut in a Tamil film titled Mythili Ennai Kaathali, directed by T. Rajendar, which was a huge box office hit. Winning overnight fame, she charmed cinegoers in a flurry of fifty films, including a number of Tamil box office hits. She acted with her future husband Akkineni Nagarjuna in hits such as Nirnayam and Siva. She received Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Malayalam for the film Ulladakkam (1991).