He gained popularity with his role as the antagonist Kanyakumari Dikshit "Dikki" in the 1936 film Samsara Nauka.
[3] As a stage actor, Rao worked with theatre companies of Mohammed Peer, H. L. N. Simha and B. R.
He was educated at the city's Wesley Mission School where H. L. N. Simha and Mohammed Peer, who would go on to become filmmaker and playwrights respectively, were his seniors.
Rao went on to play a variety of roles for Mohammed Peer's Chandrakala Nataka Company, Gubbi Veeranna's company and Chamundeshwari Nataka Sabha; he was mostly cast to play negative-shaded characters.
[4] On 21 March 1979, while performing on stage in Challakere, Chitradurga, Rao suffered from a paralysis on one of his legs, leaving him bedridden for six years.