Robert Tudawali

Robert Tudawali (1929 – 26 July 1967), also known as Bobby or Bob Wilson, was an Australian actor and Indigenous activist. He is known for his leading role in the 1955 Australian film Jedda, a role for which he was specifically chosen by the film's director, Charles Chauvel and his wife Elsa, and which made him the first Indigenous Australian film star,

Although he had only a basic education in Kahlin Compound and Half Caste Home in Darwin, Tudawali gained a rich English vocabulary. He was a leading Australian rules footballer as a youth, and he alternated several times between Aboriginal and white society. He used the name Bobby Wilson in Darwin when he travelled there by canoe in the late 1930s, using the surname of his father's employer. He was an orderly with the Royal Australian Air Force, worked briefly in an army store and mechanical workshop, and also as a waiter before becoming an actor.

Under the name Bobby Wilson, he took part in various episodes of the 1960 TV series Whiplash, and featured in the ABC television play Burst of Summer in 1961. It has been argued Tudawali's role in the latter was closest to his real personality.

Tudawali served as vice-president of the Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights in 1966 and, working with activist Dexter Daniels, trade unionist and activist Brian Manning and author Frank Hardy, fought to highlight the poor wages and conditions of Aboriginal stockmen in the Northern Territory, which culminated in the Wave Hill walk-off in 1966. Tudawali had organised to give a series of talks to unionists throughout Australia in support of the stockmen when the Northern Territory administration banned any travel by Tudawali due to the tuberculosis he was suffering at the time. ); later he married a woman named Nancy.

Filmography Jedda (1955) as Don Reynolds

Legacy In 1987, Steve Jodrell directed Tudawali, a made-for-television docu-drama about the man, with Ernie Dingo in the title role.

In about 1993, the Media Resource Centre announced a new award for Indigenous film-making, called the Tudawali Award.