Veteran Telugu actress and producer Anjali Devi died at a private hospital in Chennai on Monday.
The 86 year old who was suffering from heart related ailments made her debut as a child artist in 1936.
In spite of being a predominantly Telugu actress, Anjali's talent made her an acclaimed multi-lingual actor with offers to act in both Tamil and Hindi films.
Born in 1928 as Anjani Kumar, she began her career as a theatre artist.
It was for her debut film as a child artist that her name was rechristened to Anjali Devi, and thus stuck with her till the end.
In 1947, Anjali Devi made her debut as a lead heroine opposite Akkineni Nageswara Rao in Telugu family drama Balaraju.
A few of her Tamil films were Niraparadhi and Sarvadhikari, and Devta and Sri Ram Vanvas happen to be her Hindi films.
Under her banner Anjali Pictures, she also produced about 20 successful films such as Anarkali, Paradesi and Suvarna Sundari.
Anjali introduced Bollywood actress Rekha into Telugu industry as a child artist with Rangula Ratnam. Also, Tamil filmdom's superstar Sivaji Ganeshan made his debut in a Telugu film, Paradesi, produced by her.
Anjali Devi is survived by 2 sons.
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