By Madhusree Chatterjee
New Delhi, Jun 3 (IANS): He was the bald foreign baddie who would get beaten to pulp by Bollywood heroes. Bob Christo's life was perhaps as daring as his stunts on screen - he once cut off a vulture's head and drank its blood in a fit of rage on home turf in Australia. In a memoir published posthumously, he turns the pages of his life."There were happy times, and sad times, but it was a life fully lived," Christo writes in his autobiography, "Flash back: My Life and Times in Bollywood and Beyond" (published by Penguin-India). He died March 21 this year at the age of 72.
For the civil engineer-turned-screen villain who adopted India as his homeland, the tryst with Bollywood began with an encounter with yesteryear actress Parveen Babi at the launch of "The Burning Train" in 1977.
On his second day in Mumbai, the actor saw some people filming on the streets.
"I started to talk to them and found out that the director's name was Prem Kapoor...I asked him if anybody could help me meet Parveen Babi," he said.
"I described how I had found the Time magazine in Rhodesia with a big write-up about the Indian film industry and Parveen Babi," Bob remembered.
A few days later, a cameraman told him that there "would be a 'mahurat' for 'The Burning Train' and Parveen Babi was one of the heroines". The villain met Babi at the Bombay Central Railway Station where the movie was being shot.
He recalled: "Zuber (the cameraman) ordered me to stand where I was, in front of a pillar, and said 'Parveen Babi will come here'."
"After about 15 minutes, a lady appeared in front of me and said, 'Hello, I am Parveen Babi'. I looked at her for a moment and then answered, 'You are not Parveen Babi," he wrote.
"Pulling the Time magazine out of my pocket, I pointed at it and said, 'this is Parveen Babi'. The lady laughed and retorted, 'In the magazine, I am with make-up and full get-up. Normally, I don't wear make-up," the actor reminisced.
Born in Sydney in Australia in 1938, Bob has appeared in at least 200 movies in 20 years and in 15 television serials, including "The Sword of Tipu Sultan".
Bob's metamorphosis into a villain from a unit hand is interesting. At an outdoor shoot of the movie "Abdullah" starring Sanjay Khan, Raj Kapoor, Danny Danzongpa and Zeenat Aman in Rajasthan, Bob impressed the actors with his "skill as a masseur".
He gave a massage to Sanjay Khan, who went on to give him a role.
"While Sanjay was talking about the day's shot with Zee (Zeenat Aman), which was the picturisation of a song between the hero and heroine, he mentioned that the previous night he had decided on the casting of an evil tantrik (occultist) who keeps advising the robber (Danny) in 'Abdullah'," Bob said.
"Sanjay looked at me and asked if I would like to play the character. I asked how much work it entailed?" he wrote in his memoirs.
Sanjay said "three important scenes and climax fights". And for that Bob "had to shave his head and grow a full beard". Bob agreed and the villain was born.
If language was a barrier, weekly lessons in Hindi by Qadir Roomi helped Bob bend the block.
"As soon as I started taking tuitions in Hindi, I tried to translate everything I could see written in Hindi script," Bob said. By then, he had also married a local Parsi woman, Nargis, and settled down in Mumbai.
A stream of movie offers followed till the beginning of the 20th century. Bob played Bollywood baddie scores of times, including in hit movies like "Qurbani", "Namak Halal", "Mard", "Mr India" and "Agneepath".
"I was ready to give up working in Indian films as an actor," Bob said. He left Mumbai for Bangalore to join the Golden Palms Resorts and Spa as a gymnasium manager and yoga master.
But a series of spinal injuries and a surgery in 2006 changed his life. Bob returned to his calling - building. Till his death.