Rob Guest, OBE
Shortly after celebrating the 100th performance of Wicked in Melbourne, in which he played the Wizard of Oz, musical theatre star Rob Guest collapsed at home after suffering a catastrophic stroke. He was rushed to hospital and maintained on life support for some 24 hours while members of his family flew in from New Zealand and elsewhere. He died today, October 2, 2008, he was just 58.
Rob Guest was the consummate professional, of the old school and a performer who could do everything well – act, sing and dance. He was also one of the most popular and, frankly, best loved members of his profession.
Quoted in The Age, Marina Pryor, his long-time co-star in Phantom of the Opera, said: “Robbie always had the number-one dressing room with the star on the door but the door was always open and the couch was always full with cast and backstage crew. He was exactly the same to his leading lady, to his producer as he was to the cleaner – and that's what everybody loved about him.”
Claimed by the UK, where he was born, by New Zealand, where he spent many years, and ultimately by Australia, where he became a citizen, Rob Guest was one of the great figures of the modern musical stage. Two thousand performances over the years as the Phantom linked him indelibly with the hit musical, but he first dazzled Australia as a bona fide star when he took on the role of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.
Guest’s partner of 10 years, Kellie Dickerson,is Wicked’s musical director. They met while working on The Sound of Music. He had two children. In The Age Marina Pryor said of her friend, "Rob was the ultimate on-with-the-show kind of guy and the ultimate professional. We used to always joke in Phantom that he would go on in an iron lung if he wanted to, he would never miss a show.
“Just a really good man, great integrity, wonderful father who adored his children Amy and Christopher to bits and you know just an absolutely privilege to have known him and worked with him all those years.”
