'Gang Leader' director Vijaya Bapineedu passes away, family awaits daughter's arrival

Gutta Bapineedu Chowdary aka Vijaya Bapineedu, a prolific figure of Telugu cinema, who is known to be a key contributor in making megastar Chiranjeevi the star that he is today, passed away on Tuesday morning due to age-related illness at 82.

Sources tell us that he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for almost four years now and had been taking treatment at Apollo Hospitals in Hyderabad since. He passed away in the presence of family members at his residence in New MLA Quarters, Banjara Hills.

When contacted, family members revealed that his last rites will take place at Mahaprasthanam in Hyderabad on Thursday. “His elder daughter lives in the US and we will wait for her arrival before going ahead with the last rites,” said a family member. Meanwhile, the Telugu film industry has been sending condolence messages for him with Mohan Babu being the first to release an official statement.

Born in 1936 in the Chatappari village in Eluru, Bapineedu initially started off working in the Public Health Department after completing his graduation. With interesting in writing since a young age, he started off with short stories that he published and even worked as the editor for a magazine called Vijaya.

It was this writing interest that eventually landed him an opportunity to work on Jagath Jatteelu which was based on one of his novels and starred Sobhan Babu and S.V. Ranga Rao. He eventually went on to collaborate with names like superstar Krishna and Rajendra Prasad amidst several others but his claim to fame came in the form of Chiranjeevi with whom he first worked in Patnam Vachina Pativratalu (1982), after the directorial debut Dabbu Dabbu Dabbu (1981). Eventually, the collaborated for Maga Maharaju (1983),  Magadheerudu (1986) and Khaidi No. 786 (1988) amongst several other films but their most notable film together is Gang Leader (1991) which wasn’t just a blockbuster upon release but turned out to be a cult classic over time.

Directing around 24 movies and producing nearly 40 films on his Syam Prasad Arts banner, Bapineedu is the only producer who has bankrolled six films with Chiranjeevi in the lead! Ironically, the last film he produced/directed was Big Boss (1995) which turned out to be a disaster which was unthought of when the duo joined hands. After this, he decided to bid adieu to films but eventually did direct Family (1996) and Kodukulu (1998) with the latter being produced by his daughters.