Kabir Bedi ( born January 16, 1946) is an Indian international film actor, perhaps 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 into a Punjabi Khatri-Sikh family in Mumbai (formerly Bombay until 1996) Bharat(India). His mother, Freda Bedi, 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.
His father, Baba Phyare Lal, was an author. He went to school at Sherwood College, Nainital.
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 (1994-1995 and a guest appearance in 2005)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 starring in Deepa Mehta's next film, "Kamagata Maru" with Amitabh Bachchan, John Abraham.
He had married three times with numerous children. He was married to the late Protima Bedi, an Odissi dancer, and their daughter Pooja Bedi was an actress in Hindi films and now is a magazine ewspaper 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. They never married.
He later was married to British born fashion designer Susan Humphreys (born in 1950) but this marriage also ended in divorce.He was also linked with Sonu Walia, a former Miss India.Married to TV & Radio presenter Nikki Bedi from the late 1990s to 2005 in which both traveled 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 two marriages they had no children.
His international model son, Adam Bedi, has made his debut in Bollywood with a thriller; "Hello? Kaun Hai!" in which Kabir Bedi also has a lead role.Bedi is based in London and Mumbai.