Aarthi Agarwal

Aarthi Agarwal (March 5, 1984 – June 6, 2015) was an Indian-American actress who primarily worked in Telugu cinema, also known as Tollywood.

Early life and career

Agarwal was born on March 5, 1984, to a Gujarati family. Her father, Shashank, is in the hotel business and her mother, Veema, is a homemaker. She has two siblings. At around 14 years of age, actor Sunil Shetty spotted her and invited her to dance on stage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After the performance, he asked her father to encourage her to take up acting in Bollywood. At age 16, she made her debut with Paagalpan.

Agarwal made her Telugu film debut in Nuvvu Naaku Nachav with actor Venkatesh. She was one of the few non-Telugu speaking actresses to work with noted Indian film stars Chiranjeevi, Nandamuri Balakrishna, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Mahesh Babu, Ravi Teja, and NTR Junior.

In 2005, The Hindu reported that Agarwal had attempted suicide after she was hospitalized with internal head injuries at Apollo Hospital, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad and put on ventilator support.