Following his career in theatre, Rao turned to film a where he became an actor, director, producer, screenwriter and occasional composer.

[1] For his performance in Hannele Chiguridaga (1968), Rao won the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actor.

[3] Rao began his career as an actor in theatre, performing in plays written in the Kannada language at the age of eight.

He then switched to male roles, his work proving popular in the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore and the non-Kannada speaking Madras Presidency.

Following a stint in film, Rao returned to Bangalore and founded the Shri Sahitya Samrajya Nataka Mandali (Shri Sahitya Samrajya Drama Company) with Subbaiah Naidu, an actor and director, who would go on to influence Kannada cinema greatly.

[3] To realize his dream of making a film written in Kannada, he approached Shah Chamanlal Doongaji, a Bangalore businessman, to finance it.