After a six-year unsuccessful struggle to land a job, he decided to try his luck in the Hindi film industry by becoming a professional actor.
In his prime, in the period 1959 to 1975, David was one of the best and the most well-known anchor, compere and the host of the prominent award shows and other functions.
Among his more notable performances were his roles in Boot Polish (1954), in which he played John Chacha, a kindly bootlegger who, before he is sent off to jail, takes two orphan siblings under his wing and teaches them to work for a living shining shoes, rather than to get by begging.
He was also featured in Pardesi (Journey Beyond Three Seas), a 1957 Russian-Indian coproduction taking place in the 1400s; The City and the Dream (Shehar Aur Sapna, in Hindi), a naturalistic urban drama from 1963, that was nominated for Indias National Film Award as best feature, and the romantic comedy Chupke Chupke from 1975 (from minute 1 to minute 2 of clip).
According to Bentsion Abraham Chewoolkar, who wrote an essay about his relation Uncle David, on the centenary of the latter's birth, Cheulkar, though not religiously devout, prayed briefly each day, and always observed Yom Kippur by fasting and by visiting synagogue for the Neilah service.