Bob Toole

Biography

Toole was born in Spokane, Washington around 1935. By 1940, he and his family moved to Van Nuys, California, where he spent his entire childhood. In 1954, he graduated from Brigham Young University and enlisted in the U.S. military in August of that year. Toole underwent basic training at Fort Ord, California, before being stationed in Yokohama, Japan, in February 1955. Toole served as the clerk typist at the Yokohama Engineer Depot for Detachment C of the 8056th army unit before being promoted to Specialist Third Class in June 1956. In 1957, after being discharged from the military, Toole moved back to Van Nuys, and then to Ventura, California. In 1959, Toole was a Ventura College student and claimed in a letter to the editor of the Ventura County Star that he had "returned from study and teaching in Hong Kong." By the end of the year, he had left California. In 1961, Toole had moved to London to study Chinese art and culture at London University for a year. Toole and his romantic partner Lily Holden (of whom it is unclear when he met) then decided to move to Hong Kong for a planned two years, after which they planned to hitchhike across Asia. Leading up to this, the couple had a brief excursion in Singapore with two Japanese friends. This trip to Singapore is detailed in an article in the Singapore Free Press from January 18 1962; the article also claimed that, since 1959, Toole and his partner (described erroneously in the article as his wife Lily and Mrs. Toole) had "visited nine countries in Europe and Asia" and that they spent "three months in New Dehli teaching Tibetan refugee children English, geography and mathematics." After moving to Hong Kong, Toole continued his studies of Chinese art, language and culture at the University of Hong Kong. How Toole met Ted Thomas is not clear, but he apparently became an instrumental part of Axis International's early dubs. Toole wrote and did voice acting for Axis' early dubbing productions from 1963 to 1964. Although Toole and Holden got married in Hong Kong in 1963 and had planned to move out by 1964, the birth of their son Marc and his childhood in Hong Kong seem to prove that they may not have actually left the colony. Eventually, Toole either had an argument with Ted Thomas regarding his desire to open up a dubbing studio independent of Axis, or he opened up his own dubbing studio because he had an argument with Thomas. Toole also managed the Godown Bistro in Kowloon, although by August 1971 he ceased association with the restaurant. For unknown reasons, Toole's dubbing group closed its doors, and there are no documented dubs of the group made after October of that year. His family left Hong Kong, and at some point, settled in Ibiza, Spain. Toole is believed to have opened Bob Toole's School in 1974 where he, Lily, and others taught English, German, Spanish, French, English literature, mathematics, science, biology, history, Japanese history, geography, and art. Toole and his wife passed away in 1991 and 1988, respectively, and Bob Toole's School closed down. The two were buried at Cementerio Nuevo De Santa Eulària Des Riu.