Rob Guest

Rob Guest, OBE ( born July 17, 1950 in Birmingham, England; † October 2, 2008 in Melbourne, Australia, Robert actually John Guest ) was a New Zealand theater actor, singer and presenter.

Biography

Rob Guest began his career as a singer in the New Zealand pop charts and there was the star in many TV shows such Happen Inn. He was also known in Korea and in Czechoslovakia in 1978 and won the Best Performance Award of the Korean Song Festival and was elected to the New Zealand Professional Performer of the Year. For CBC, he turned a TV special in the same year. He then moved to the U.S. and worked in several cities, including Las Vegas and Atlantic City as a presenter and artist. In 1985, he won an award in Los Angeles the charity FIDOF.

In the late 1980s he moved for an engagement as " Jean Valjean " in the musical Les Misérables to Australia. For this he was awarded the Green Room Award 1991. Then he took the role as Phantom of the Opera and played the lead role of 1991 to 1998. Through its total 2,289 performances he holds the world record. On January 1, 1994, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE) for his services to the New Zealand entertainment industry. He was also host of the game show Man O Man, an Australian adaptation of man -o- man.

After his term commitment to Phantom of the Opera, he played among others in the musical Jolson Al Jolson and Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music. He had in the musicals Footloose and The Music Man -starring. In 2008 he played the Wizard of Oz in the musical Wicked - The Witches of Oz On Tuesday, September 30, he suffered a stroke and was taken to St. Vincent 's Hospital in Melbourne, where he died at the age of 58 two days later.