A rib-tickler who enthralled viewers

Along with Chiranjeevi , Dr Rajasekhar and Pawan Kalyan, new generation stars like Nithin, Sai Dharam Tej and directors Gopichand Mallineni and popular writer Gopi Mohan expressed their condolences to the star comedian, who ruled the roost for two decades in T-town.

"He worked with big stars like Chiranjeevi, Pawan Kalyan, Prabhas, Mahesh Babu, Nagarjuna, Jr NTR, Ram Charan and others to carve niche for himself among a host of comedians," says writer Gopi Mohan, who claims that Venu used to come up with interesting 'suggestions' to enhance comedy scenes. "He has a great flair for comedy and even came up with some comic punchlines on the sets to take the scene to the next level," he adds.

Top directors like S S Rajamouli, V V Vinayak and Puri Jagannath, Srinu Vaitla, Surender Reddy and Boyapati Srinu penned 'special' roles for him and he used to draw huge applause for his comic-act, under the nose of superstars.

"His roles in 'Sye,' 'Chatrapathi, 'Lakshmi,' 'Simhadri,' 'King,' 'Bangaram,' 'Athanokkade,' 'Simha' and 'Brindavanam' will be etched in the minds of Telugu viewers for long," says director Samudra and adds "Venu Madhav matched timing with comedy stars like Allari Naresh, Sunil and others with ease in films like 'Blade Babji' because comedy was his forte."

However, like Brahmi and Ali, Venu Madhav also tried his luck as hero but couldn't taste big success since his home production 'Premabhishekam' failed to set box office on fire.