Kabir Bedi
Kabir Bedi is an
Indian international film actor, most famous for his roles of Sandokan in the TV series
Sandokan, Prince Omar Rashid in the
soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful and Gobinda in the James Bond film
Octopussy.
Bedi was born on
January 16,
1946 into a
Punjabi Sikh family in
Mumbai (then known as Bombay),
India. His mother converted to
Buddhism and his family was easy going generally regarding personal religion and morality although he did rather try their patience as he has acknowledged himself.
Married 3 times with numerous children. He was married to Odissi dancer the late
Protima Bedi; their daughter
Pooja Bedi was an actress in
Hindi films and now is a magazine\newspaper columnist, their son Siddarth who had been doing well at University in the USA had a long history of
schizophrenia and tragically committed suicide in 1997 at the age of 26.
As his marriage with Protima began to break up he started a relationship with the late
Parveen Babi although they never married and later he was married to Susan Humphreys although the marriage ultimately ended in divorce.
Married to TV & Radio presenter
Nikki Bedi from the late 1990's to 2005 in which both travelled extensively not actually seeing each other very much and in the end he decided that it wasn't working out and they divorced amicably - unlike his other 2 marriages they had no children.
His international model son, Adam Bedi, has made his debut in Bollywood with a thriller; Hello? Kaun Hai.
Currently, Kabir Bedi is based in
London and Mumbai.
Over the last three decades, Bedi has acted in over 60
Bollywood films, with starring roles in
Kuchche Dhaage,
Manzilein Aur Bhi Hain, and
Khoon Bhari Maang. He also played a Mafia Don in Feroz Khan's
Yalgar.
Bedi shot onto the international stage in the role of Sandokan, a Malaysian, Robin-Hood-like pirate created by the Italian author
Emilio Salgari. The Sergio Solima directed mini-series was filmed in 1976 on location in South-East Asia. He later reprised the Sandokan role in two films shot in the 1990s.
In the James Bond film
Octopussy, he played Gobinda, the villain who battled
Roger Moore from start to finish. In Europe, his greatest success was the title role in "Sandokan", a record-breaking Italian-German-French television series, the saga of a romantic Asian pirate and freedom fighter during British colonial times. Many also saw Bedi as Prince Omar in the TV series
The Bold And The Beautiful for over a year.
Bedi has also starred in the Bollywood epic, Akbar Khan's
The Taj Mahal, as the embattled Emperor
Shah Jahan, builder of the world's greatest monument to love.
He is currently starring in
Deepa Mehta's next film,
Kamagata Maru with
Amitabh Bachchan,
John Abraham.
*The
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences*The
Screen Actors Guild*The
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists*The
British Actors' Equity AssociationOfficial Fan Club Germany
*Kabir Bedi at imdb.comKabir Bedi Fanclub
*Exrtensive Interview with Filmfare in October 2001*''
Interviewed by Indian Express in 1999
