Amrish Puri, whose eldest brother Madan Puri was a wellknown actor, initially screentested for a hero's role in 1954. But he did not get the part. His first movie was Sunil Dutt's Reshma Aur Sheera in 1971, when he was 39 years old!

Puri worked as a government official for most of his career, until he decided to chuck babudom for Bollywood in the 1970s. He also worked in Richard Attenborough's [Images] Gandhi (1982) and Steven Spielberg's [Images] Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1983).

He liked his bald look in the Spielberg film so much that he decided to shave his head clean for all his future movies.

Naseeruddin Shah [Images], Om Puri [Images] and Amitabh Bachchan [Images] pay their respects at his Juhu home.