Tom Alter

Did you know?!

1. Beyond film

   In 1978 Alter formed the theater group Motley Productions with Naseeruddin Shah and Benjamin Gilani; their first play was Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, staged at Prithvi Theatre, Bombay, on 29 July 1979.

2. Early training

   Alter studied acting at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune from 1972 to 1974 under Roshan Taneja, after the Hindi film Aradhana turned him toward acting.

3. Languages

   Alter dubbed for actor Jeevan in Amar Akbar Anthony, voicing the innocent half of the twin roles Jeevan played in the film.

4. First role

   After finishing at FTII, Tom Alter went to Mumbai, where Chetan Anand's Saheb Bahadur (1977), starring Dev Anand, gave him his first break. Ramanand Sagar's Charas, however, reached audiences before it.

5. Behind the camera

   Alter wrote books including The Longest Race, Rerun at Rialto and The Best in the World, and wrote extensively on cricket for publications such as Sportsweek, Outlook and Firstpost.

6. A change of course

   Siraj Syed, a friend of Alter's, asked him to come to Singapore in 1996. There he provided Hindi cricket commentary for Indian viewers on ESPN, the sports TV channel.