Long before “Prince” became his moniker and decades before he turned into one of Telugu cinema’s most bankable leading men, Mahesh Babu was a familiar face on screen as a child.Born Ghattamaneni Mahesh Babu on August 9, 1975, in Chennai, he is the son of veteran actor Krishna, and it was this family connection that pulled him into films at the age of four.His first brush with the camera came almost by chance. At the age of four, he was visiting the sets of the Telugu film Needa, which starred his elder brother Ramesh Babu and was directed by Dasari Narayana Rao. The director spotted young Mahesh on set and decided to shoot a few sequences with him as part of the film’s story. It was a brief, blink-and-miss appearance, but it marked the first time Master Mahesh Babu’s name appeared in a film’s credits. It marked the start of a run that would eventually total nine films as a child artist over the following decade, most of them alongside his father.He went on to appear in Poratam (1983), directed by Kodi Ramakrishna, where he played a character named Bujji opposite his father Krishna. His run continued through the late 1980s with Sankharavam (1987), in which he played the son of a CBI officer, followed by Bazaar Rowdy and Mugguru Kodukulu, both released in 1988. Mahesh Babu, with his father Krishna in the film Poratam (1983) (Credit: BA Raju’s Team/ X)In 1989, he featured in Gudachari 117 and Koduku Diddina Kapuram, the latter notable for giving him a dual role despite his young age.This was arguably the most significant of all his childhood roles. Released in 1989, Koduku Diddina Kapuram was directed, edited and produced by Krishna under the family’s Padmalaya Studios banner. The film, loosely inspired by the 1961 Hollywood classic The Parent Trap, featured Mahesh in a dual role for the first time, playing twin brothers named Vinod and Pramod who are separated when their parents, played by Krishna and Vijayashanti, split up due to the scheming of a villain played by Mohan Babu. The rest of the story follows the children as they try to reunite their parents. The dual role, with its dance sequences and fight scenes, turned the young Mahesh into something of a talking point in the industry at the time.His run as a child actor ended in 1990 with two films, Balachandrudu, where he played the title character opposite veteran actor Satyanarayana, and Anna Thammudu, marking his ninth and final film before stepping away from acting.Story continues below this adAlso Read: ‘Funny, vulnerable and powerful’: SS Rajamouli on Mahesh Babu’s character Rudra in VaranasiThrough these years, Mahesh Babu was still a student at St Bede’s Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School in Chennai, juggling film shoots with schoolwork. He has spoken in past interviews about how, as a child, acting felt less like the beginning of a career and more like a welcome break from the classroom, a chance to spend a few days on set instead of sitting at his desk.Once Balachandrudu and Anna Thammudu wrapped in 1990, the family made the decision for Mahesh to step back from films entirely and focus on completing his education. That break lasted almost a decade.Mahesh Babu went on to earn a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Loyola College in Chennai, before returning to the film industry as an adult lead in Rajakumarudu (1999). The film won him the Nandi Award for Best Male Debut and set him on the path to the stardom he holds today, built on hits such as Murari, Okkadu, Pokiri, Businessman, Srimanthudu and, more recently, Sarkaru Vaari Paata.Story continues below this ad Mahesh Babu and Preity Zinta in a still from Rajakumarudu (1999) (Photo: IMDb)Looking back, those nine early films now read almost like a quiet apprenticeship, one that gave Mahesh Babu his first real taste of an industry his family had long been part of, well before the world came to know him as one of Telugu cinema’s biggest stars.