KABIR BEDI: STORIE CHE VI DEVO RACCONTARE

Il 19 ottobre 2021 sarà in distribuzione nelle librerie Storie che vi devo raccontare. La mia avventura umana, l'autobiografia di Kabir Bedi. Nel sito di Mondadori si legge:

'Raramente capita di leggere un’autobiografia così sincera. Kabir Bedi, l’indimenticabile Sandokan, ha messo a nudo la sua anima, raccontando in questo libro non solo la sua carriera di star internazionale, ma anche le tragedie che l’hanno colpito, i grandi amori tormentati, il sapore spesso amaro del successo. Un successo planetario, che l’ha portato da Bollywood a Hollywood passando per l’Italia. Perché è nel nostro paese che tutto è iniziato, quando il regista Sergio Sollima l’ha scelto per il ruolo di Sandokan nella miniserie dedicata al personaggio di Emilio Salgari, che con i suoi 27 milioni di spettatori resta una delle più viste nella storia della televisione italiana. Era il 1976, e dopo l’Italia Kabir conquistò l’Europa, poi Hollywood, che lo scritturò come antagonista di James Bond in Octopussy - Operazione piovra. Il giovane giornalista timido ma coraggioso che a Delhi riuscì nell’impresa impossibile di intervistare i Beatles, in pochi anni era diventato una star in tutto il mondo. Ma dietro questa facciata smagliante c’era un uomo integro, che cercava di conciliare i suoi valori, la sua spiritualità e i suoi affetti con le proprie ambizioni e con le leggi spesso ciniche dello star system. Tante le donne importanti della sua vita, dall’indomabile prima moglie Protima al grande amore Parveen Babi, attrice bellissima e tormentata, all’attuale moglie Parveen Dusanj, l’approdo sicuro dopo una vita tumultuosa. Tanti i dolori, su tutti la perdita dell’adorato figlio Siddharth (narrata con straziante sincerità nel sesto capitolo del libro) e la lontananza della madre Freda, diventata monaca buddhista quando lui era giovanissimo. I momenti migliori della vita di Kabir sono forse quelli che gli ha regalato l’Italia. E uno dei capitoli più divertenti del libro è dedicato ai suoi incontri romani: con Federico Fellini, che pur all’apice della fama gli racconta di non trovare produttori per finanziare i suoi film, o con Gina Lollobrigida, causa di un increscioso “incidente diplomatico” con l’allora fidanzata Parveen Babi. “La mia vita” scrive Kabir “è stata un ottovolante di emozioni.” E leggendo questo libro, magnificamente scritto, si ha proprio la sensazione di volare con lui'.

Ieri Kabir Bedi ha partecipato (in collegamento video) all'inaugurazione del Ca' Foscari Short Film Festival 2021 per presentare l'organizzazione umanitaria Care&Share di cui è sostenitore. (Al festival verranno proiettati anche due cortometraggi indiani di Shazia Iqbal e Tarun Dudeja).

Aggiornamento del 19 ottobre 2021 - Kabir scrive in italiano nel suo profilo Twitter: 'Oggi, 19 ottobre 2021, è un giorno storico per me. La mia autobiografia, Storie Che Vi Devo Raccontare, è uscita in Italia, che mi ha dato più fama, onore e amore di qualsiasi altro Paese. In questo giorno speciale, saluto la memoria di Sergio Sollima, che mi ha scelto per il ruolo iconico di Sandokan; Carole André, l'amore immortale di Sandokan; Philippe Leroy, suo fedele amico, e Guido e Maurizio De Angelis, per la loro musica indimenticabile. Spero che vi piacciano tutte le storie che ho raccontato, e scoprite cosa ho vissuto e imparato nella mia vita. Buona lettura! Per favore ditemi cosa ne pensate'.

RASSEGNA STAMPA/VIDEO (aggiornata al 23 dicembre 2021)

- How Kabir Bedi became an Italian sex symbol with 'Sandokan', Scroll, 29 aprile 2021:

'Kabir Bedi’s recently published memoir Stories I Must Tell (...) has prominent sections on an Italian television show from 1976. That’s hardly surprising: titled Sandokan, the mini-series made the Indian actor a sensation in Italy and the rest of Europe and paved his path to Hollywood. (...) Salgari’s novels had already inspired Italian movies in the 1940s and 1960s, with Italian or American actors playing the pirate. By casting the half-Indian, half-British Kabir Bedi for the television version, director Sergio Sollima brought the character somewhat closer to his Asian roots. The show was released in Italian, French, German, Dutch and Spanish. (...) The first episode was telecast in Italy on January 6, 1976. Ten days later, Bedi and Parveen Babi, his partner at the time, landed in Rome for a tour. As Bedi writes in Stories I Must Tell, the mini-series had “exploded across Europe”. Its synth-heavy title track “Sandokaaaan!” was everywhere, as were Sandokan dolls and comic books. Ships were named after the character, Bedi writes, and humans lined up too: “Many people wanting to name their children ‘Kabir’ were rebuffed at the Registry office; the letter ‘K’ doesn’t exist in Italian.” The couple were thronged by hysterical admirers wherever they went, Bedi recalled. Sandokan devotees landed up at the hotel where Bedi and Babi were staying. Even the concierge wanted Bedi’s autograph: “My wife is crazy about you!” he told the actor. 

Bedi had been working in the Hindi film industry with mixed success since 1971. (...) Bedi’s career hadn’t taken off as expected, so the offer to headline a Italian series, however bizarre it might have sounded, came as a godsend. The show’s director, Sergio Sollima, was a well-known Italian filmmaker. (His son Stefano Sollima is an equally well-known director). (...) Sergio Sollima took many risks, Bedi recalled in his memoir: “Sergio’s insistence on Oscar-winning art director Nino Novarese gave the series its spectacular visual elegance. So did Marcello Masciocchi’s photography. Most remarkable of all was Sergio’s choice of musicians. Although he had done five film scores with Ennio Morricone, world-famous even then, he didn’t return to him. He had the courage to pick the exciting new creativity of the young Guido and Maurizio De Angelis for the score.” (...)

The triumphal return to Rome in 1976 was marked by a fair amount of drama. Even as Bedi exulted in his newfound popularity, his travelling companion was volatile. Parveen Babi appeared to be displaying early signs of a condition that was later diagnosed as schizophrenia. Bedi’s evocative memories of being mobbed by fans and meeting Italian celebrities (including Gina Lollobrigida and Federico Fellini) are laced with anecdotes of sparring with Babi. Bedi already had an Italian connection of sorts. His father, spiritual healer Baba Bedi, had moved to Italy in 1972. “What were the chances that a Bollywood actor and his Indian philosopher father would be well-known in Italy at the same time?” Bedi recalls asking his father. Baba Bedi replied: “Divine mischief!” (...)

His stardom in Italy had been made and marred by the television show’s success. Why wasn’t he being inundated with offers from Italian filmmakers, he asked a director. The reply, as Bedi writes: “You are Sandokan, Kabir! We cannot think of you as anything else. We make social and political films or typically Italian comedies. We can’t have Sandokan walking into our stories. It would spoil the film.” (...) 

Bedi was keen on getting Parveen Babi cast in Sandokan Rises Again, he writes in his memoir. It would have been her first international project. However, Babi walked out of the film before the shoot began. “The consequences were seismic,” Bedi writes. “No important actresses were free at such short notice. Sergio [Sollima] was forced to settle for a lesser-known lead, Teresa Ann Savoy.” (...)

In 2004, Bedi was in Island of the Famous. In the Italian reality television show, modelled on Survivor, 13 celebrities were marooned on an island in the Caribbean and made to forage for food. Bedi came second in the show. “People got to see Sandokan as a person,” he writes. Italy continued to remember the actor. In 2007, he had a role in the Italian TV show A Doctor in the Family. The same year, Bedi featured in the radio show Ch@T, playing a sailor who poses as Sandokan to impress an Italian woman who is a fan of the character.

By then, Bedi had travelled all over the world, had worked in Bollywood and Hollywood, and had earned a reputation as a crossover actor. But Sandokan, for better or worse, refused to leave Bedi’s side - a reminder of the enduring appeal of the rugged pirate who was created in the nineteenth century and made an Indian actor an icon in Italy well into the twenty-first century'.

Ca' Foscari Short Film Festival 2021

- Recensione, Manjula Narayan, Hindustan Times, 14 maggio 2021: 

'Thoughtful, brave, full of insights about life, occasionally naïve, and utterly honest, Kabir Bedi’s memoir is unlike anything you would expect from a Bollywood personality. But then Bedi, who has worked in Hollywood and continues to be wildly famous in Italy, has always been different from the other stars of his generation, the Amitabh Bachchans, the Shatrughan Sinhas, the Jitendras etcetera, who clung to bourgeois respectability even when the gossip magazines hinted at lurid escapades. Bedi was a member of the “bohemian Juhu gang” in the 1970s that included Shekhar Kapur, Mahesh Bhatt, Danny Denzongpa, Parveen Babi, Shabana Azmi, Parikshit Sahni and Jalal Agha, among others. 

He was in an open marriage with Protima (...) Bedi, the model and socialite who doubtless would have been the queen of Insta influencers today. (...) Kabir Bedi famously left his wife for Parveen Babi who, like Meena Kumari, Guru Dutt, and lately Sushant Singh Rajput, forms a part of Bollywood’s tragic tableau of stars who shone so bright they consumed themselves. (...) Kabir Bedi’s success in Italy where Sandokan (1976) made him a superstar put a strain on his relationship with Babi who, from this account, seems to have already begun the slide that ended in her lonely death in 2005, when “Her body was found in her Juhu flat four days after she died, a leg rotted by gangrene, a wheelchair by her bed.”

Followers of film gossip will focus on the multiple marriages, affairs, and stories of infidelity but Stories I Must Tell is much more than that. It features great sketches of Bedi’s remarkable parents - his “auburn-haired English mother Freda” who became an influential Buddhist nun known as Gelongma Karma Kechog Palmo and his father Baba who became a philosopher in Italy (there must be a karmic connection with the Italians somewhere), and offers glimpses of the politics of newly independent India. (...) Indian readers will be fascinated by the unusual (for us) frankness about sexual relationships and tales of struggle and success in Hollywood and Europe but it is the section on the suicide of Bedi’s brilliant schizophrenic son Siddharth that reveals the man’s vulnerable saddened core. (...)

The memoir is a tricky form and film stars who attempt it risk coming across as self-obsessed liars intent on whitewashing their pasts. That is not the case with this book, which is sometimes painfully honest. (...) The reader might never succeed in dodging the slings and arrows of outrageous romantic fortune but he will definitely understand that it takes a brave man to be this emotionally honest. An immensely readable account of a life touched by fame, adventure, much love and deep sorrow too, Stories I Must Tell marks Kabir Bedi out as a true original'.

- Kabir Bedi presenta il suo libro, Penelope Corrado, Secolo d'Italia, 21 agosto 2021: 'Kabir Bedi racconta la favola di un giovane bello, creativo e irrequieto che conquista il cinema indiano, poi quello italiano, poi quello mondiale. Ma il libro racconta soprattutto un’avventura umana, e ben presto si dimentica la star, per scoprire e amare l’uomo Kabir. L’attore racconta in prima persona la sua vita rocambolesca. Lo stile è brillante, e il libro cattura immediatamente il lettore in un ottovolante di avventure, di trionfi e di cadute, di amori burrascosi e di atmosfere da favola. Molte pagine sono dedicate all’Italia e agli incontri speciali, da Federico Fellini a Gina Lollobrigida. Quello che colpisce è la forte personalità dell’attore, un mix affascinante di idealismo e ambizione, di intelligenza e passione, di mondanità e spiritualismo'.

- I didn't become a megastar in Hollywood but the stint gave me a lot, Ankita Chaurasia, The Times of India, 17 ottobre 2021. Intervista concessa da Bedi:

'You wrote your book when you were alone during the pandemic. Was it a cathartic experience and did it, at any point, get to you? (...)

Of course, everyone has regrets. And I think it's important to acknowledge those regrets, to mourn having made those mistakes, but, like the pandemic, to move on, and look in hope at the future. What was the hardest thing for me was when I went back into tumultuous relationships, and to write about them in depth, with honesty, and frankness, not sparing myself either. I made those mistakes; I can only be frank, about others, if I'm frank about myself, and that's what I did. It's hard because you have to relive that. When I talk about my son's mental health issues and his problem, it's hard because I have to go back and relive it. Talking about my great successes as a superstar in Europe is the easy part, but sharing about the time when I faced financial upheavals in Hollywood 20 years later, because of the bad investments I made, and because of which I almost came to the point of bankruptcy, is hard. But it's just part of what I set out to do - tell the truth. I have lived an extraordinary life and the only way I can tell it is by telling it warts and all. It is of the great loves, but also the great heartbreaks, of euphoric moments of success, but also of absolute devastation, and also how I rose from that devastation to be decorated by the Italians with the highest civilian honor.

What does it mean to write a tell-all memoir at a time when celebs refrain from taking a stand on almost everything fearing a backlash from trolls? Didn't you at any point in time feel the same kind of pressure of being judged when sharing details of your personal life?

Ek kashmakash chalti rehti hai (There’s a constant dilemma) between the public's desire to know about a celebrity's life, and his desire to keep his life private. But the fact of the matter is, if you work so hard to become a celebrity, there's a natural curiosity about your life and you can't deny that. So these are not rights on either side; these are competing desires. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere because you can't tell everything about your life, but you can't hide everything either. So, the trolls, which you face when you talk about your life or take a stand on any issue, come with the territory. You have to accept the fact that if you're a person of any significance, doing anything significant, there will be trolls, and you’ll deal with them. That shouldn't stop you from taking a stand, writing a book, talking about your life, supporting causes that you believe in. You can't stop being a vibrant, concerned human because of the fear of what people might say.

But sometimes your personal life shadows your professional one. Does that bother you how we put our celebs on a pedestal and expect them to be superhumans who can't make mistakes?

You have a very valid point. I don't blame the media for picking out the juiciest bits, because ultimately, people want readership. I don't mind them looking for a headline because they want to create a relatable headline, I understand that. But the minute they do that, it gives me the freedom to talk about the other things in my book. So, I have to thank them for the attention (smiles).

Do you ever get tired of being scrutinised all the time? Don't you sometimes want to take a break from being in the public eye?

People who work very hard to be known and become celebrities have no right to complain when they are recognised, or when people invade their privacy when they're out in public. Yes, there are certain things you lose - you can't just go to the beach and watch the sunset all alone and admire the people walking by you, and think about life the way you might have. But the fact of the matter is, it is so much better to be recognised by people, and be admired for what you've done. When people say please take a selfie with me, take it as a compliment, not an intrusion on your privacy. (...)

Why did you mostly play antagonist roles in films?

I played all kinds of roles in films - heroes, villains, supporting characters, fathers, uncles, bosses, gangsters - you name them. And I've played this in film industries across the world. The reason I got ‘Khoon Bhari Maang’ was that I was so versatile. When Rakesh [Roshan] called me to offer me the role, I wondered why wasn’t someone in Bollywood doing it and he told me that in that film, the hero turns into a villain, so heroes didn't want to do it and if he cast a villain, there would be no surprise. He told me I was the only one who could convincingly play a hero and a villain. I played all kinds of roles and still do. You can't play a hero all your life; you have to diversify as an actor.

Does it bother you that despite being such a huge star in Europe, Millennials and Gen Z might not know about your work? Are you doing something to change that?

That is one of the reasons I wrote my book. I dedicate this book to young professionals like my son, Siddharth, who want to make the world a better place. It's very important for young people today to know not just what happened to me and the success I had as an actor internationally, but what's also important is for them to know the times we lived in. What was it like to live in that age of social ferment when everything was changing? What was it like to be in Bollywood in the '70s, with the three great acting greats - Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Dev Anand - rubbing shoulders with you at different events. What was it like to be in Hollywood of the ’80s and ’90s? What was it like to meet Audrey Hepburn and have a life-changing conversation with Sean Connery? You know, Omar Sharif was the first actor of Asian origin, who became a star in Hollywood, so he was a role model for me.

What’s the one craziest fan moment you encountered?

In Spain, the crowds were going mad, and there was one girl that screamed out loud, ‘I want to have your baby’ (laughs). That phrase became a mantra for the media in Spain for decades and defined my stardom there.

Bollywood actors who have worked in Hollywood films often complain about being typecast. Do you think that happened to you with ‘Octopussy’ or since?

My problem was the fact that in those days, they were not writing roles for Indians. What do you do? So I adapted by playing all foreign roles. And I played many foreign roles, like in ‘Bold and Beautiful’ which was the world's second most-watched show; I played a Moroccan prince in it for a year. It got me a worldwide fan following. In fact, in the James Bond film that I did, I was cast correctly. I was cast as an Indian citizen, which is what I am. I played an ethnically correct character. But nothing brings greater joy than watching the success of actors like Priyanka Chopra today. And yes, it is a little easier for them because roles are being written for people of different ethnicities but it's never easy in the film business; it is one of the hardest businesses to be part of. So, it's important that we acknowledge her... she had her own struggles and problems to overcome. But I've always said that anyone who survives 50 years in the film business, deserves an Oscar.

Why was your Hollywood career cut short? Didn’t you ever think of insisting on roles being written for you?

I protested and wrote articles to raise the issue of lack of diversity in Hollywood, but then, you know, one swallow does not make a summer. In time, enough people continue that process and protest. Diversity has today become an issue. You know, casting and writing for different ethnicities is part of Hollywood's agenda today. So I can say that I started the ball rolling by protesting. And that protest has continued and resulted in that diversity; that gives me great joy. But I wasn't entirely ever dependent on Hollywood; I did enough work in Europe. At this stage of my career, I've been given Italy's highest civilian honour. I've been knighted by the Italian Republic. So, let's not just be Hollywood-centric; it's not the only film industry in the world. Europe is the same size as America. It's no less. So to be recognised and to have that level of success in Europe doesn't diminish the level of my success internationally. But Hollywood gave me a worldwide base of fans. And yes, I didn't become the megastar that I could have in Hollywood. But it gave me a lot. It also gave me some of my hardest times. That's life.

Did you ever reject Bollywood projects that went on to emerge as hits for Hollywood films?

I'm not going to live on regrets because I don't believe in regrets. I just believe that the best is yet to come. And I still do.

Like you pointed out, roles are now being written for different ethnicities in Hollywood. But what about Bollywood? Are we writing roles for every age group, and ethnicity?

Bollywood has changed. It's making films of a very different type now; it's pushing the envelope. With OTT platforms, people are able to see films from around the world, and they're going to expect more from Bollywood. And Bollywood has always adapted as well. There are some things in commercial Bollywood cinema that remain the same - song and dance routines, which Bollywood does better than anybody in the world and is respected for it. Nobody asks why are people singing opera; it's an art form. The song-and-dance is part of our values, an art form; I don't think it is anything to be ashamed of. At the same time, we have a generation of directors making very realistic, hard-hitting, yet entertaining films. We are real quick learners; we were no slouches. We may not have the budgets of Hollywood, and we may not be able to get into the super expensive genres, but there's no limit to our imagination. And when you take a look beyond Bollywood, into the regional industries, do you realise that together, there's an extraordinary variety of films being made today. And we are still the world's biggest film producers. So, we're doing something right.

Did you ever think of settling down abroad?

Never. I lived abroad for almost 30 years of my life, but I always came back because I felt that I had to be among my people, who have problems that I care about, and values I share, whose problems I want to make my own, and whose destiny I wish to be part of. So, I always knew I would come back to India no matter how many years I spent abroad, and when the time was right, I came back. I still work abroad; they know me, and I have agents abroad. After returning, I have done several films here too. It could be possible I'd do my best role ever in any of the film industries, even now. I'm an eternal optimist. Everything can happen; I believe the best is yet to come'.

- Prima di essere Sandokan intervistai i Beatles, Candida Morvillo, Corriere della Sera, 19 ottobre 2021. Intervista concessa da Bedi.

- Video Rai omaggio alla carriera di Kabir e video Rai dell'intervento di Nino Frassica: Kabir Bedi, in collegamento da Mumbai, il 24 ottobre 2021 partecipa alla trasmissione Che tempo che fa.

- Sarò il primo a vedere il nuovo Sandokan, Mario Manca, Vanity Fair Italia, 3 novembre 2021. Intervista concessa da Bedi:

'Kabir Bedi non ha l'abitudine di riguardare i vecchi film e le vecchie serie che lo hanno visto protagonista, ma per Sandokan, lo sceneggiato di Sergio Sollima che gli ha cambiato la vita negli anni Settanta, ha fatto un'eccezione. «L'ho visto 5 o 6 volte. Mi riguardo solo per capire cosa avrei potuto fare meglio e per godere delle cose positive che ritengo di aver fatto bene», racconta Kabir dal quadratino di Zoom, collegato dalla sua casa di Mumbai. (...)

Perché ha deciso di scrivere la sua autobiografia proprio adesso?

Ho avuto una vita straordinaria e volevo condividerla non solo con la mia famiglia e i miei amici, ma anche con i fan e le persone interessate al mondo dello spettacolo, alla gloria e ai pericoli dello showbiz. La mia vita è stata una montagna russa: è la storia della mia ascesa, della mia caduta e della mia risurrezione.

Ha accarezzato il sogno di fare l'architetto, ma anche il regista: da bambino, invece, cosa sognava di diventare?

I bambini hanno molti sogni. Ero molto impressionato dall'esercito e sognavo di diventare un generale, ma anche un pompiere per poter salvare la vita della gente, e un giornalista. Mi sarebbe piaciuto fare l'architetto, ma non potevo permettermi quella strada per le condizioni economiche della mia famiglia. Una volta ammesso alla St. Stephen's, ho lavorato in tv e in radio, e questo mi ha portato a costruire la mia carriera. (...)

È sempre stato ambizioso?

No. Volevo una vita interessante, creativa. Volevo toccare e raggiungere il cuore della gente. Ho tentato molte cose ambiziose: in alcune sono riuscito, in altre no. Non sono mai stato disposto a fare qualsiasi cosa pur di raggiungere il successo. (...)

Cosa ha provato quando ha finito di scrivere la sua storia? 

Un senso di completamento incredibile. Era una storia che premeva per uscire e per essere raccontata da 10 anni. Mi chiedevo come fare, fino a quando non ho avuto un'epifania e l'ho scritta con grande passione. Non posso descrivere la soddisfazione di esserci riuscito. L'ho portato a mia moglie come dono per il suo compleanno e mi ha detto che non avrei potuto farle regalo migliore'. 

Kabir Bedi, Parveen Babi e Sergio Sollima: set de Il corsaro nero, 1976

- La mia carriera è cominciata quando intervistai i Beatles, Davide Turrini, FQ Magazine, 21 dicembre 2021 - Intervista concessa da Bedi:

'Può spiegarci le differenze tra il sistema cinematografico di Bollywood, poco celebrato e visto in Occidente, e quello di Hollywood?

Ce ne sono di grosse. La più evidente è che nei film bollywoodiani si usa la danza come forma di storytelling quindi in mezzo al dramma, all’azione, alla comicità partono lunghe e ricche sequenze di musica e ballo. È un aspetto peculiare che si è distinto fin da subito, un po’ come è stato il teatro kabuki per il cinema giapponese. Il mercato di Bollywood, tra l’altro, è imponente con oltre un miliardo di spettatori solo in India e si allarga in Israele come in molti paesi dell’Africa. Nella pratica ci vuole molto per girare un film bollywoodiano: ci si ferma spesso, si gira qualche giorno questo mese, qualche giorno quell’altro. Non c’è la tradizione di girare un film dall’inizio alla fine senza pause come nelle produzioni di Hollywood. Altra cosa simpatica, le star vivono un rapporto particolare e diretto con la musica, perché questa, soprattutto nel sud dell’India, unisce ed è naturale cantare tutti insieme, consolida il senso di comunità. (...)

Nel tour improvvisato di promozione di Sandokan in Italia molti divi vollero incontrarla. Il primo fu Federico Fellini con la moglie Giuletta Masina.

Ero un fan di Fellini. Una notte in un cinema indiano vidi una maratona con tutti i suoi film. Quando lui mi chiese di incontrarmi (...) non pensavo potesse mai succedere. Sembrava di essere in un suo film. Eravamo (...) [nell'] Hotel di Roma e pranzammo. Fece grossi complimenti alla mia fidanzata di allora, Parveen.

Il successivo incontro tra lei, Parveen e Gina Lollobrigida non andò benissimo...

Venimmo invitati a casa sua in mezzo ad altri amici. Lei mi prese da parte e volle parlarmi di tutto il suo amore per le cose asiatiche. Parveen era piuttosto arrabbiata di tutta questa attenzione. Successivamente andammo in un ristorante dove c’era anche una pista di ballo dove Gina mi trascinò in un istante. Parveen non era proprio d’accordo, anzi quando Gina le rivolse la parola trattandola come un’accompagnatrice lei rispose con rabbia: “No cara, sono con il mio uomo, perché io un uomo ce l’ho”.

Poi incontrò Sergio Leone...

La sua villa sembrava una fortezza. Guardie armate ovunque con mitragliette a tracolla. Era l’epoca della paura delle Brigate Rosse. Terrorizzavano chiunque e Sergio aveva paura che rapissero qualcuno dell’industria del cinema. Mi parlò moltissimo di un progetto che poi divenne C’era una volta in America. (...)

Lei rischiò la vita, tra l’altro, sul set de Il Corsaro Nero...

Girammo nei Caraibi. Eravamo a Cartagena in Colombia. E lì gli spagnoli che avevano occupato la città nel passato avevano costruito una enorme fortezza difensiva e nel golfo davanti ad essa avevano disseminato ulteriori costruzioni difensive poi finite in rovina. C’erano molte scene di battaglia da girare sopra la nave del protagonista. Questo galeone però non era una vera barca, ma era sormontata da una sovrastruttura di scena ed era trainata da un rimorchiatore per dare l’idea del movimento in mare aperto. Un giorno il pilota inesperto del rimorchiatore ci fece finire contro la struttura difensiva spagnola e la nave affondò. Non c’erano scialuppe e in pochi minuti tre quarti di nave erano sott’acqua. Abbiamo avuto molta paura. Io ne ebbi ancor di più mentre giravo un’altra scena in cui finivo in acqua. Non riuscii a togliermi gli stivali in tempo e si riempirono di acqua in pochi istanti. Pesavano come pietre e nonostante le gran bracciate mi sentivo trascinare sul fondo. Fu un momento molto drammatico. (...)

Poi c’è stato il sorriso della principessa Diana...

Uno dei vantaggi dell’essere attori in un film di James Bond è quello di poter partecipare alla première mondiale londinese del film. Ma fu come un piccolo incidente diplomatico perché il principe Carlo mi stava stringendo la mano destra e intanto aveva accennato al suo ricordo dell’India. Nello stesso istante la principessa mi prese la mano sinistra e me la strinse regalandomi un sorriso abbagliante. Ero imbarazzato e in confusione. Carlo se ne accorse e obbligò la moglie a seguirlo andando oltre. Lei emanava uno splendore che non dimenticherò mai.

L’Italia oltre a Sandokan le ha dato anche la partecipazione alla seconda edizione de L’isola dei famosi. Ci sveli un segreto: tutte le cose accadute lì sono vere?

Sì, confermo. Se non vincevi contest non mangiavi. C’è però una cosa buffa che mi è accaduta. Quando eravamo davvero affamati, ma davvero affamati, magicamente sono apparse noci di cocco sulla spiaggia'.

- Video DiLei, 23 dicembre 2021: intervista concessa da Bedi.

Aggiornamento del 21 marzo 2022: Kabir Bedi presenterà la sua autobiografia in varie città italiane. Il 23 marzo a Verona, alle ore 17.00 presso la Biblioteca Civica (evento trasmesso in diretta sul canale YouTube della biblioteca), alle ore 18.30 presso la libreria Il Minotauro. Il 24 marzo a Milano, alle ore 18.30 presso la libreria Mondadori di piazza Duomo. Il 25 marzo a Roma, alle ore 18.00 presso la libreria Mondadori di piazza Cola di Rienzo.

Milano, 2022