The legendary NTR Rama Rao once occupied the position of being the top actor in the Telugu Film Industry, and Akkineni Nageswara Rao was alongside him, occupying the same position. After them, it was Superstar Krishna that occupied that spot for several years. Even today, every single film lover talks about NTR, ANR and Krishna, and the huge variety of roles they essayed, irrespective of their stardom. Similarly, there were several top heroines in Telugu back in the black and white era, from Savitri and Jamuna to Jayalalithaa and Vanisri.
Telugu cinema changed with the rise of Megastar Chiranjeevi. From more grounded and family-oriented films, Telugu cinema ventured into the commercial arena, with amazing stories and scripts. Chiranjeevi ruled Tollywood for more than a decade, with almost every section of the audiences being spellbound to his performance, dialogue delivery and graceful dances on the screen. Of course, there were other kinds of films too, and Chiranjeevi was effortless in every role he played. However, he was the king of commercial cinema. There were top heroines during this era as well, in the form of Vijayashanti, Roja, Ramya Krishna and Soundarya.
Post this era though, there hasn’t been a single actor or actress that anyone could call a bonafide top actor or actress. Of course, at a certain point, Superstar Mahesh Babu was considered to be the top actor of Tollywood, and Anushka Shetty was considered to be the top actress. Nevertheless, with the increasing amount of talent in the industry currently, and with more and more actors surfacing, the idea of a top actor or actress has slowly started to become obsolete. Today, we live in a reality where everyone is an actor or a star actor, and not particularly the topmost actor.