Robert John Christo, popularly known to Hindi cinema lovers as Bob Christo and lovingly called Bob ji, was an Australian who called India his home.
Bob Christo was born in Sydney in 1938 and was a qualified Civil Engineer. Here he had a wife, three children, and a construction business.
In 1978, he arrived in Bombay (now Mumbai) to get a work permit for Muscat.
In Mumbai, it is reported, Bob Christo was introduced to Bollywood actress Parveen Babi who enabled him his first steps into the world of Hindi cinema.
Bob Christo’s Hindi film career started with actor-producer Sanjay Khan’s ‘Abdullah’ (1980) and he went on to act in over 200 Hindi films, including the blockbusters ‘Qurbani’ (1980), ‘Kaalia’ (1981), ‘Nastik’ (1983), ‘Mard’ (1985), ‘Mr India’ (1987), ‘Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja’ (1993) and ‘Gumraah’ (1993).
He also appeared in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada films.
Appearing mostly as a quintessential gora (white guy) – a gangster, a brutal henchman of the main villain, a British or foreign army General, or a foreign smuggler ready to loot India’s historic treasures – Bob Christo became a cult figure for millions of Hindi film fans with a whole website dedicated to his work (Planet BollyBob).
No doubt, given his physique, the big, bad and bald ‘gora’ Bob Christo was Australia’s ‘scariest’ export to India!
Raj N Sippy, who directed him in Mr Bond, observed:
“He looked scary. He was also the only guy around who could pop open a bottle with his thumb.”
Bob Christo loved Mumbai and Hindi films, and decided to call India his home where he had. a second marriage with Parsi lady Nargis.
Bob Christo took Nargis’ son, Sunil, as his own and the couple also had another boy, Darius.
In the early 2000s, taking retirement from Bollywood, Bob Christo started teaching at institutes in India and the US.
Later, he ventured into the hotel business by relocating to Bangalore (now Bengaluru) where he started taking yoga and meditation classes. In 2006, as spinal stenosis took hold, Bob Christo could no longer teach yoga.
In 2011, the 72-year-old civil engineer-actor-yoga instructor was preparing to launch his autobiography, Flashback: My Times in Bollywood and Beyond – spread over five continents and ten countries.
Shekhar Kapur, who directed Bob Christo as Mr Wolcott in ‘Mr India’ with the famous dialogue “Indian god marta hai”, said that in his role he caricatured himself:
“He was strange in the way that he was always drifting. It was a very Australian thing—to travel everywhere and then find a reason to settle down in one place.”
The much-loved man from Australia died of rupture of the left ventricle valve at the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology in Bangalore on 20 March 2011. He was brought to a hospital after he complained of chest pain and suffered a massive heart attack.
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