Tinnu Anand
Amitabh Bachchan made his acting debut with the film Saat Hindustani (1969) directed by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas.
The film talks about the struggles of 7 young revolutionaries, with Utpal Dutt playing the lead role. Tinnu Anand was an industry insider courtesy his father Inder Raj Anand and therefore he often met Khwaja Ahmed Abbas in his office who used to give him a passing shot in his movies. Eventually he signed Tinu for a proper role in Saat Hindustani. At that time Khwaja Ahmed Abbas was looking for an actress for the film. He saw a photo of actress Neena Singh from Kolkata who agreed to do the film. It was Neena who suggested the name of Amitabh who was her acquaintance at Bird and Co. company. Khwaja Ahmed Abbas was reluctant and asked Amitabh to come for audition at his own expense in Mumbai (Amitabh was working in Kolkata) and wait for the audition. Tinnu Anand was supposed to play the role played by Amitabh Bachchan but he wanted to become a director and had applied to assist the great filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Before the shooting of Saat Hindustani started, Tinnu Anand received a letter from Satyajit Ray asking him to work with him as assistant. For that Tinnu Anand had to leave for Kolkata. Therefore he had to leave the film Saat Hindustani.
After Neena Singh suggested the name of Amitabh Bachchan who was struggling and desperate to work in movies and was an acquaintance of Rajiv Gandhi who gave him a recommendation letter (Indira Gandhi had become the PM of the country by this time). It was Tinnu Anand who was given the task of offering Rs 5000 to Amitabh for the film. Even though the amount was too low he still accepted it to work in the film. He eventually won a National Special award for this film and the film itself won 3 National awards even though it was not commercially succesful. Interestingly Neena Singh who suggested Amitabh’s movie didn't report for the shooting and was replaced by Shernaaz who was Jalal Agha’s sister who also played one of the roles in the film. Interestingly Shernaaz married Tinnu Anand soon.
It all started a friendship between Amitabh and Tinnu Anand which culminated into a lifetime collaboration with Amitabh and Tinnu working in films like Kaalia, Shahenshah, Major Saab etc with Amitabh as actor and Tinnu Anand as the director. They also worked in films like Agneepath as co actors.