Career
Modelling
One of the earliest finds of Design and Print Group, Malhotra began his career modelling for a menswear line in Bangalore, and soon became one of the most sought after models during the late 1980s and the early 1990s. [4]
He was the face of Vimal, a major textile brand of Reliance Industries, for many years; [3] [5] and reportedly had a contract of ₹1.5 Lakhs in 1987, which was unprecedented at that time. [6] He gained further popularity with his TV advertisement for Aramusk, a soap that was promoted as being for the "extravagantly male". [7] He also appeared in advertisements for Kwality and Garware Video Cassette.[ citation needed ]
Acting
After his success as a model, he started getting movie offers, and moved to Mumbai. In 1991, he made his film debut with Yash Chopra's Lamhe , [8] starring alongside Sridevi and Anil Kapoor. [9] The film did poorly at the box office and Martelli received backlash for his role, particularly for a single scene. [10] Martelli was also cast for the 1993 film Darr , but he was replaced by Sunny Deol due to the backlash he received for his performance in Lamhe. He got his second and last film role in the 1994 action film Tejasvini , where he appeared opposite Vijayshanti. By 1994 he had stopped receiving offers as an actor and moved to the United States to continue his modeling career. [10]
Entrepreneurship
Malhotra moved to New York City and changed his name to Dino Martelli. [11] [12] [13] There he studied industrial engineering and designing, [14] and started working in the field of apparels. He is currently the principal at NYC Made Apparel, which he co-founded in 2018. [1] [15]
In 2003, [16] he opened Café Sesso in The Courtyard in Colaba, Mumbai with his friend and business partner, socialite Sabina Chopra. [14] [17] It shut down over a year later, [18] and they took up the management of the restaurant at Breach Candy's Moksh gym and leisure club, naming it Spring. [19]