Mumbai: Kabir Bedi is an Indian television and film actor. His career has spanned three continents including India, the United States and many European countries in three mediums: film, television and theatre. He is noted for his role as Emperor Shah Jahan in Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story.
He is best known in Europe for playing the pirate Sandokan in the highly popular TV miniseries and for his role as the villainous Gobindain the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy. He is popular in Italy and is fluent in Italian. Kabir Bedi is based in India and lives in Mumbai.
Kabir Bedi began his career in Indian theatre and then moved on to Hindi films. Bedi remains one of the first international actors from India to have originated from Bollywood, worked in Hollywood, and become a big star in Europe.
As a stage actor, Kabir has performed Shakespeare’s Othello as well as portrayed a mad historical Indian king, Tughlaq; and a self-destructive alcoholic in The Vultures. In London he also starred in The Far Pavilions, the West End musical adaptation of M. M. Kaye’s novel, at the Shaftesbury Theatre. In 2011 Kabir played Emperor Shah Jahan, in ‘Taj’ a play written by John Murrell, a celebrated Canadian playwright for the Luminato Festival in Toronto.
He has also won numerous film, advertising and popularity awards across Europe and India. By decree of the President of the Italian Republic of 2 June 2010, Kabir Bedi was officially knighted. He received the highest ranking civilian honour of the Italian Republic and was bestowed the title of “Cavaliere” (Knight) of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
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