Robert Tudawali

Robert Tudawali
Tudawali at the Bagot Native Settlement in 1960
Born	Robert Tudawali 1929 Melville Island, Northern Territory
Died	July 1967 (aged 37–38) Darwin, Northern Territory
Cause of death	Severe burns and tuberculosis
Resting place	Darwin cemetery

Robert Tudawali (1929 – 26 July 1967) also known as Bobby Wilson was an Australian actor and indigenous activist, born and raised on Melville Island in the Northern Territory to Tiwi parents.

Although he had only a rudimentary education in Kahlin, at the Native Affairs Branch, he attained a rich English vocabulary, he was the leading Australian rules footballer as a youth, he alternated several times between Aboriginal and white society. Tudawali used the name Bobby Wilson in Darwin, when he travelled there by canoe in the late 1930s the surname of his father's employer. We was an orderly with the Royal Australian Air Force and worked briefly in an army store and mechanical workshop, and serving as a waiter before becoming an actor.

He became the first Aboriginal film star as a result of playing the lead role, Marbuck, in the 1955 Australian film Jedda. Tudawali played the role of Emu Foot in the 1958 movie Dust in the Sun, a mystery film adapted from the novel Justin Bayard by Jon Cleary and produced by the team of Lee Robinson and Chips Rafferty. Under the name Bobby Wilson, he took part in various episodes of the 1960 TV series Whiplash. Tudawadi also featured in the ABC television play, Burst of Summer, in 1961.

Tudawali served as Vice-President of the Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights in 1966 and, working with trade unionists 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.