Am Rathnam

Rathnam was born in Buchi Reddy Palem of Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh, into a Telugu family. Rathnam has two sons, director-cum-actor Jyothi Krishna and actor Ravi Krishna. Jyothi Krishna's directorial debut Enakku 20 Unakku 18 and its Telugu version as well as Ravi Krishna's first four films, that also includes Jyothi Krishna's second directorial Kedi, were all produced by Rathnam himself. In 2012, he built a temple for Shirdi Sai Baba at his office premises in Valasaravakkam

Ratnam started his career as a make up man for South lady superstar Vijayashanti for years and grew up as one of the biggest producers in South India, and his first film as a producer was Karthavyam(1991) with the financial support from this actress.
He made films with Kamal Hassan, Rajnikanth, Chiranjeevi and many other super stars. He later began producing films in Tamil and Hindi as well, particularly high-profile and big budget films, besides dubbing and releasing several films in other languages. He went on to finance Shankar's Indian, which earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Film – Tamil and was later submitted by India for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Nayak: The Real Hero and Sneham Kosam starring Megastar Chiranjeevi. Rathnam produced the Tamil romance film Kushi starring Vijay and its same-titled Telugu remake the following year starring Pawan Kalyan, both of which were directed by S. J. Surya and became highly successful. During the early 1990's he directed two films Peddarikam and Sankalpam in Telugu.He has also written the screenplay for the film Naaga.