Bob Christo (1938–2011) was an Australian-Indian civil engineer and actor. Bob also served as the official director of health and fitness at Sanjay Khan’s resort in Bangalore. He has acted in over 200 films and television serials in Bollywood, Mollywood, Kollywood and Tollywood, including films such as Qurbani (1980), Nastik (1983), Mr. India (1987) and Gumrah (1993). He is known for bringing the stereotypical foreign goon to life on screen. Bob Christo died on March 20, 2011 due to a ruptured left ventricle valve.
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Wiki/Biography
Bob Christo was born Robert John Christo in 1938 (aged 73 at death) in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Bob completed his schooling and studied theater in Germany. Bob traveled around the world before coming to India. Firstly, he completed his civil engineering degree in Sydney and was part of the Australian Army and had a stint in Vietnam where he was in charge of a team of mercenaries and built bridges. After this he found himself in South Africa. Bob’s work and life have taken him from Hong Kong to Japan and the Seychelles. Being part of the Australian Army, he had to join the special air services of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In Zimbabwe, Bob read an article on Parveen Babi in Time Magazine which inspired him to meet her. He arrived in India waiting for his work permit for Muscat, which forced him to leave Muscat while the permit was processed. Instead of quitting, after attempting to meet Parveen Babi, he worked in Bollywood and worked in more than 200 films across film industries in India.
Physical Appearance
Height (Approx): 6′ 0″
Weight (Approx): 90kg
Hair Color:
Eye Colour: Black
Body Measurements (Approx): Chest: 41 Waist: 38 Biceps: 15
Family
Bob Christo was born in Sydney, Australia to a Christian family. The family moved to Germany when Bob was five.
parents and siblings
Bob Christo’s father was of Greek descent and his mother was German. He had a sister and two brothers named Mike and Helmut.
wife and kids
Bob Christo met his first wife, Helga, when he was 20, and had three children with her, including two daughters, Monique and Nicole. When his wife died in a car accident, Bob gave their three children to a friend and his wife and moved to Saigon where he helped the South Vietnam Army. He then married Nargis Christo in 1981 and had two sons, Darius and Sunil.
Bob Christo with his wife Nargis, sons Darius and Sunil and daughter-in-law
relationships/affairs
In Bob’s autobiography, Flashback: My Life and Times in Bollywood and Beyond, he talks about the innumerable relationships and affairs he had during his lifetime. When Bob was in the Philippines, building sets for Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now film, he had an affair with Kisa, a Polynesian student, and a Filipino woman named Maria Antoinette. Maria and Bob had twin daughters, and Bob had promised to marry her. However, instead of fulfilling his promise, he left the city. He further confessed that he slept with his maid Reena in Mumbai, the affair happened before he became an actor.
Religion
Bob Christo follows Christianity.
livelihood
film
Bob Christo’s first film role was when he was 16 years old and he starred in a German film after working as an extra at the Düsseldorf National Theater in Germany. He remained in the film industry by using his civil engineering degree and building a jungle castle for Francis Ford Coppola as part of the set for the film Apocalypse Now (1979). He found himself in Mumbai where he got a villainous role in the Hindi film Abdullah (1980), where he played the role of a ‘magician’.
Bob Christo on the poster for Abdullah (1980)
While this was the first film in which he was cast, other films had been released prior to it, such as Arvind Desai’s Ajeeb Dastaan (1978) and Qurbani (1980). Since then, he has appeared in over 200 films in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada and has always been cast as the bald, villainous foreigner. He then starred in films such as Kaalia (1981) and the classic Disco Dancer (1982), where he played the role of an ‘international hit man’.
Bob Christo on the poster for Disco Dancer (1982)
He has also acted in Nastik (1983), Hadsa (1983), Insaaf Kaun Karega (1984), Insaaf Main Karanga (1985), Gerfatar (1985) where he played the role of Ram, Hello My Dear Wrong Number (1986) which was a Malayalam film, Kadhal Parisu (1987), a Tamil film, Mr. India (1987) where he played Mr. Wolcott , which is one of his most popular films. roles, in the Kannada films Jayasimha (1987), Toofan (1989), Agneepath (1990), Saugandh (1991), Kalicharan (1998), and finally, Aman Ke Farishtey (2016) which was his last film.
Bob Christo and Akshay Kumar in the movie Saugandh (1991)
Television
While Sanjay Khan discovered him and cast him in the film Abdullah, Sanjay Khan also gave him roles in the television serials, The Sword of Tipu Sultan (1990), in which he played General Mathews, and The Great Maratha (1994), where he played Ahmed Shah Abdali, who became an icon among viewers of the show. He also appeared in a French television show called La Nouvelle Malle des Indes (1981), which translates to The New Trunk of India.
Death
Bob Christo died on 20 March 2011 at the age of 73 due to rupture of the left ventricle at the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology, Bangalore, where he was admitted after suffering a heart attack. At the hospital, he suffered another heart attack from which he died.
facts/common sense
- Bob always wanted to act as a hero, but never got the chance.
- Bob Christo worked as a yoga instructor from 2000 to 2006, but due to a spinal injury, he stopped working as a yoga instructor. He attributes this injury to the number of stunts he performs while shooting for films.
- Bob Christo credits his role in Abdullah to his masseur skills, which impressed Sanjay Khan when Bob was working as his bodyguard.
- Bob Christo brought out Time magazine in which Parveen Babi was with him until he met her.
Time magazine cover featuring Parveen Babi piqued the interest of Bob Christo
- Most of Bob Christo’s character names were variations of his own name, such as Inspector Bob, Terrorist Bob, Commander Bob, etc.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn