Kamala Kumari, wife of legendary actor Rao Gopala Rao and mother of actor Rao Ramesh, passed away on Friday night at 11.15 pm. The 73-year-old hadn’t been keeping well since the last few days and is survived by three children — a daughter, Sitadevi and two sons — Ramesh and Kranthi Kumar.
Kamala Kumari was a celebrated Harikatha artiste and famous playwright in Telugu. She was a part of nearly 14,000 Harikatha programmes all over the world.
During one of her tours, she met Gopala Rao, a Telugu theatre artiste at the time. It so happened that the latter attended one of her shows and fell in love with her. The duo got married on January 16, 1966.
Kamala Kumari, also a philosopher, was greatly inspired by the Bhagvatham, which reflected in most of her plays. In India, she is known to have performed at pilgrim places like Tirupati, Bhadrachalam, Yadagirigutta and Annavaram.
She initially started performing Harikathas when she was eight and went on to gain immense popularity in the ’60s and ’70s.
Several film celebrities arrived at Rao Ramesh’s house to pay a tribute to the artiste. Chiranjeevi, who is very close to Gopala Rao’s family, paid his tribute and reminisced his old memories with Kamala Kumari.
