He began work as a Commercial Apprentice at the Austin Motor Company in Birmingham in 1964 and toyed with developing a career as a footballer (even playing in King Norton's League and for Alvechurch second team).
Introduced to the Alvechurch Amateur Dramatic Society, he did some work at Crescent Theatre before being trained at the Birmingham College of Speech and Drama.
Calder on the second series of Prime Suspect, recurring appearances as DS Bernie Duckworth in Juliet Bravo, and multiple characters in The Bill.
Other TV show appearances include Bergerac, Boon, Birds of a Feather, Casualty, Doctors, Heartbeat, Holby City, Inspector Morse, Jonathan Creek, Lovejoy and Agatha Christie's Poirot.
In 2010, he played the Master of Ceremonies in Chris Shepherd's award winning film Bad Night for the Blues.