Hyderabad: Tollywood senior veteran Actress Gitanjali passes away on Thursday early hours in a hospital undergoing treatment. She was admitted Wednesday night with a severe stomach pain and undergoing treatment.

    Senior Actress Gitanjali made her debut in a dance bit in “Rani Ratnaprabha”. Later the legendary actor NTR saw her and selected her in for his mythological film “Sitarama Kalyanam” which was directed and produced by NTR. She entered in an agreement with NAT banner and was personally trained by the late NTR. She played the main role of Sita in this film and Haranath is the Rama character and NTR acted the villain of Ravana character. From that film she was called and well known as NTR’s Sita. She was acted nearly 500 films spanning the Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi languages. She acted with all top stars of that time including NTR, ANR, Shivaji Ganeshan, Krishna, Shoban Babu and Krishnam Raju.  

   She was born in Kakinada of East Godavari district in AP in 1947. Her original name was Mani. Hindi director Babubhai Mistri changed her name Mani to Gitanjali, because the Hindi film title Parasmani. She was turned as comedy artist in the film Devatha pairing with comedian Padmanabham. Afterward she was stamped as a comedy artist. Padmanabham and Gitanjali was hit pair in the films and the duo acted as a pair in 100 films.

    Gitanjali married Tollywood actor Ramakrishna. She was survived with a son and a daughter, Ramakrishna was passed away in 2001. Some of Gitanjali’s notable films include Sitarama Kalyanam, Letha Manasulu, Sambarala Rambabu, Illalu, Abbaigaru- Ammaigaru, Dr. Chakravarthi, Chaduvukunna Ammailu, Murali Krishna, Navarathri, Ave Kallu, Gudachari 116 and Nindu Hrudayalu.

     Gitanjali’s dead body brought to her house Nandinagar on Thursday morning and shifted the body to the film chamber for the public visit. Gitanjali’s last rites conducted on Thursday.