Aarthi Aggarwal

Aarthi Agarwal (March 5, 1984 – June 6, 2015) was an American actress of Indian origin who primarily worked in Telugu cinema.

Early life and career Agarwal was born on March 5, 1984, in New Jersey to Gujarati parents. Her younger sister Aditi Agarwal is also an actress in the Telugu film industry. At around 14 years of age, actor Suniel 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 the age of 16 she made her film debut in Paagalpan (2001).

Agarwal made her Telugu film debut in Nuvvu Naaku Nachav (2001) with actor Venkatesh. She was one of the few non-Telugu speaking actresses to work with noted Indian film stars Chiranjeevi, Nandamuri Balakrishna, Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, Rajashekar, Prabhas, Mahesh Babu, Ravi Teja, Srikanth, Jr NTR, Uday Kiran, Tarun, and Venu.

She ventured into Tamil films also, through Winner (2003) and Bambara Kannaley (2005). In Winner, she was initially cast as the female lead. But due to her unavailability in the second shooting schedule, she was eventually replaced by Kiran Rathod, owing to her popularity after the Tamil film Gemini (2002). She took up popular Telugu remakes of Jyothika's blockbuster Tamil films like Dhool (Veede) and Priyamaana Thozhi (Vasantham)

In 2005, media reported that Agarwal had attempted suicide over the failure of a romantic relationship with a co-star. In 2006, following an accident at home, she was hospitalized with internal head injuries at Apollo Hospital, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad and put on ventilator support.

In 2007, Agarwal married a software engineer; the couple divorced in 2009.

Death On June 6, 2015, Agarwal was pronounced dead on arrival at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Agarwal, who had undergone a liposuction surgery six weeks prior, had severe breathing problems before her death. Her manager stated the cause of her death was cardiac arrest. She had been living with her parents in Egg Harbor Township.

Filmography All films are in Telugu, unless otherwise noted.