A cabaret performer from the age of 13, children's author, songwriter, comedian and entertainer, Bob La Castra, was born in England and moved to the Gold Coast in 1981. In 1985, after five months on air with Australia's longest running children's show Wombat, he received the Penguin Award for 'Best children's TV personality'. The first British actor to star in the long running Australian hit soapie Neighbours, he also presented the ABC's Holiday Program and hosted 80 episodes of his own game show The Big Square Eye.
In 1987 he won a Media Peace Prize for 'Change the Future', a song he wrote for UNICEF. He was the first writer of the ABC TV preschool program Bananas in Pyjamas, which was an international success and sold to more than 50 countries.
La Castra was elected to the Gold Coast Council in 1997.
