Basavaraju Venkata Padmanabha Rao, popularly known as Padmanabham, was an Indian film, character actor, comedian, director and producer known for his works predominantly in Telugu cinema. Padmanabham is regarded as one of the finest comic actors of India, noted particularly for his comic expressions, and dialogues during the golden age of Telugu cinema. Padmanabham was essentially a theatre artist, although he also found success in cinema, and has acted in over 400 feature films. He made his film debut in 1945 with Mayalokam. He co-founded a Theatre group with his friend Vallam Narasimha Rao, Rekha and Murali Arts with S. P. Kodandapani as their music director.