Madras to Hollywood, by way of Wimbledon

2. Madras

   Ashok Amritraj, the youngest of three brothers, grew up in what he calls “Old Madras, as opposed to new Chennai.” Their mother put them into tennis “just to keep us out of trouble.” Their grandfather hoped one of them would play at Wimbledon, and all three did. Ashok's second home was the Safire Theatre, where he saw The Sound of Music 32 times.

3. Wimbledon

   In 1974 he reached the final of the boys' singles. The next year he moved to California to play for a Los Angeles team, dropped his bags, and took a cab to Warner Bros, Columbia and Disney. “Films were always something I wanted to do, it was only a question of when.”

4. Hollywood

   “There were no Indian producers in Hollywood,” he remembers. He raised $500,000 from friends for his first film and learned the business from Roger Corman. In 1991 Double Impact, with Jean-Claude Van Damme, brought deals with the studios.

5. The Academy

   In 1992 he became a voting member of the Academy, by his account its only Indian filmmaker. There he met Robert Wise, who directed The Sound of Music, and told him how many times he had seen it. Wise said, “So that's where all the box office in India came from.”

6. Hyde Park

   He founded Hyde Park Entertainment in 1999. In 2003 he produced Bringing Down the House, which opened at number one in America. Walking Tall, Shopgirl, Premonition and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance followed. “My thing has always been about bridging the gap between Asia and the West,” he has said.