The son of Shaista Begum, who was one of the pioneering voices of Radio Pakistan,[1] he was called "the Pakistani Laurence Olivier" for his versatility and his later role as mentor to other actors.
[2] Talat Hussain was born in Delhi, British India on 18 September 1940, his parents moving to Karachi soon after partition, where his mother Shaista Begum joined Radio Pakistan as a broadcaster.
[2] One of his first movies was Chiragh Jalta Raha (1962), where he played a supporting role, now considered a classic, and in 1967 he joined Radio Pakistan as a voiceover artist.
[2] He then shared the screen with some important names of Pakistan's cinema, such as Waheed Murad in Ishara (1969) or Mohammad Ali in Insaan Aur Admi (1970).
[1] In February 2012, Talat Hussain revealed that he had caught a skin allergy in 2010, which developed complications due to incorrect treatment by a local cosmetologist.