EDITOR'S NOTES
Because of the large amount of wonderful news about Kabir and his career, this May newsletter has been delayed.
The next issue will appear soon and again I will put 'a lot of Kabir' into it!
This month saw a surprising SANDOKAN renaissance in Hungary, where Kabir, the best Sandokan ever, has many fans. My online news item about SANDOKAN IN SICILY has now been used by several news agencies, internet portals and newspapers.

The website has been designed for Internet Explorer, not for Netscape.
ALL kabir-bedi.com pages are freely accessible to ALL visitors. You do not need a password.
The only exception is the 12-page BIOGRAPHY section with hundreds of entries about Kabir's private life and career - this section is reserved for registered members. To become a member, and enjoy a growing number of exclusive benefits, please sign up online - it's free!
We look forward to welcoming the 500th member this summer. The lucky one will receive a special welcome!
Andrea Verschuur, late May 2003

NEWS
KABIR'S BOOK
Many thanks for your overwhelming interest in Kabir's new book. Many fans just can't bear the long wait!
Unfortunately, the book has - for the time being - been put on ice. Kabir says he has been so busy in recent months that he simply hasn't had time to work on it. Jetsetter Kabir is returning to India in June - not to his typewriter but to more filming.

KABIR'S DAUGHTER POOJA AND HIS SON ADAM
The LINKS section now lists links to information and pictures of Kabir's daughter, Pooja, and his son, Adam, who is making his own forays into the movie business - with a leading part!

SANDOKAN IN SICILY
The director of Kabir's new Sandokan project has visited the MITIC professional film fair in Cannes to raise funds and get publicity for the new movie.
The MITIC fair runs in parallel to the world famous Cannes Film Festival but is open only to producers, distributors and other professional people.
Shooting for SANDOKAN IN SICILY is to begin around the end of this year.

THE HERO
The worldwide premiere of Kabir's film THE HERO  was very successful. Now, several weeks later, the movie is still being shown in cinemas. The DVD is commercially available, but make sure you get the uncut version when you buy it!
Detailed information, links to trailers, and stills of Kabir in THE HERO are available online.

TAJ MAHAL - AN ETERNAL LOVE STORY
Kabir's mega-project is still in post-production. The premiere has been brought forward from December to October 2003. Although everything is moving along well, there will be many changes yet to the schedule, as is often the case with large projects like these.
Kabir and director Akbar Khan take a break on the lavish set of Taj Mahal.

MARIGOLD
EXCLUSIVE: I am now quite sure that Kabir willl be playing the father of Bollywood dance tutor Prem (played by Salman Khan). Kabir is the proud chieftain of a prosperous and traditionally-minded Rajasthan clan, and appears mostly in the second part of MARIGOLD.

More information in the MOVIE BY MOVIE section.
An almost complete list of Kabir's movies, TV and other public appearances - now more than 130 - is on the FILMS page. The PROJECTS page contains a list of Kabir's dozen-odd films that are in the making and information about his own autobiographical BOOK.

KABIR PICTURES
Want to see Kabir having a bath? Or with a pipe? Or in uniform?
Check out about 100 new pictures in the MOVIE STILLS section, including his Indian movies TAJ MAHAL (1 picture), NAGIN (7 pictures, more to follow), KSHATRIYA (24 pictures), POLICE PUBLIC (26 pictures) and YALGAAR (32 pictures).
There's a current photo of Kabir, handsome as ever, in the SNAPSHOT section.

SANDOKAN STARS IN THE LIMELIGHT
PHILIPPE LEROY - SUPER-HERO, SCULPTOR AND PARACHUTIST 
Many visitors to the site would like to know more about the co-stars in Kabir's SANDOKAN movies, so this month, the spotlight will be on PHILIPPE LEROY as part of this new feature.

Philippe Leroy was born in Paris on October 15, 1930.
In a 45-year career, he has made about 150 movies, TV productions, etc.

His first appearance, as the Corsican, Manou, in Jacques Becker's French classic prison drama Le Trou, was a great success. Philippe Leroy worked with major directors including Carlos Saura, Jean-Luc Godard, Sergio Corbucci, Nicholas Ray, Tinto Brass, Yves Robert and Claude Zidi. His best known films include such titles as Claude Lelouch's Un homme et une femme.Vingt ans déjà; Luc Besson's taut thriller Nikita; Liliana Cavani's controversial Il Portere di Notte; and the comedy Buena Sera, Mrs. Campbell.
Philippe Leroy worked alongside Harvey Keitel in Baciami strega (1985).
He played the ingenious hero Albert in the crime-capers about the Sette Uomini d'oro and had a part in the film In Love and War about Ernest Hemingway, with Sandra Bullock.
Philippe's Yanez (of SANDOKAN fame) made a surprise comeback in the Italian farce Teste di Cocco (2000), in which two young men travel to Malaysia in search of their father and their roots...

Philippe worked with Kabir not only in SANDOKAN (1976) - which attracted 27 million viewers when it was first broadcast in Italy - but also in NOI SIAMO ANGELI, LIE DOWN WITH LIONS and  LA TIGRE E ANCORA VIVA:SANDOKAN ALLA RISCOSSA!

Philippe Leroy's Yanez de Gomera in SANDOKAN is unforgettable. He not only conquered the hearts of many of his fans, but was also a hard act to follow for his successors, including Fabio Testi in Kabir's IL RITORNO DI SANDOKAN.
Yanez, Sandokan's faithful companion, is a courageous man of action, whose heart is in the right spot. Yanez' feelings for Marianna, the Pearl of Labuan, grow from a wait-and-see indifference to serious respect - a change which Philippe Leroy showed with an understated and so all the more impressive range of gestures, mannerisms and looks. Philippe's art of showing Yanez' personality by the way he touches his hat or holds his cigarette has given great pleasure to many SANDOKAN viewers. In an Italian interview, Philippe said that Yanez was his favourite role and is a reflection of his own adventurous lifestyle. "When I approached this adventurer, a dear friend told me: 'Philippe, put magic into it.' I think I managed to do that."
In the eyes of many, Philippe Leroy is the world's best Yanez alongside the world's best Sandokan! 

Curiously, Philippe Leroy himself played the role of a pirate in his TV Film Il Corsaro. This film, based on the novel The Rover by Joseph Conrad, is not related to Kabir's film IL CORSARO NERO .   

Philippe's daughter, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, is also a successful actress. Among her internationally famous films are 3 Hommes et un couffin, the epic TV miniseries Mistral's Daughter (showed for the first time in Germany in 1988) and James Ivory's Jefferson in Paris. In Vajont (2001), Philippine played together with her father.

For many years, Philippe Leroy has been living in Rome, where his daughter was born in 1963. Every inch an actor, to this day Philippe won't dream of retiring in the shade of the Italian pine trees, but has already appeared in two new TV productions this year.

He prefers to use the name Philippe Leroy for international productions, while French productions have him listed as Philippe Leroy-Beaulieu.

The SANDOKAN section contains an almost complete list of Philippe Leroy's works, as well as stills from 14 of his films. Many more will be added soon.
Some external links:
<Philippe Leroy a l'occasion du cycle 'Melville', en mai 2002>
<I Raduno nazionale: Viterbo 17 e 18 giugno 2000> - with Philippe Leroy pictures
<Philippe Leroy at imdb.com>
<Mike Martinez' review of cult-western Mannaja aka A Man Called Blade>
<Mike Martinez' review of Treasure Island in Outer Space aka L'Isola del tesoro>

...but best of all, get your information straight from the horse's mouth, from the highly entertaining Philippe Leroy official homepage.

For another SANDOKAN co-star in the limelight, check out the next issue of KABIRISSIMO!