On the list of biological parents who gave up children who went on to become famous is Abdulfattah John Jandali, the biological father of Apple genius Steve Jobs.

Like his son, Jandali is a workaholic.

He is vice-president of a Reno casino and has no interest in retirement, according to New York Post writer Georgina Dickinson.

He is 80. And he would love to see Jobs before one of them dies.

“This might sound strange, though, but I am not prepared, even if either of us was on our deathbeds, to pick up the phone to call him,” Jandali told Dickenson. “Steve will have to do that, as the Syrian pride in me does not want him ever to think I am after his fortune.”

Jobs, 56, stepped down as CEO of Apple after launching the age of the digital lifestyle by democratizing computers. His inventions upended personal computing, the music industry, publishing and Hollywood, putting what were once powers held by only a few into the hands of the masses.

Jandali and his girlfriend, Joanne Carole Schieble (later Simpson), met at the University of Wisconsin, where he was a professor and she was a student, according to previous press reports. They wanted to marry, but Simpson’s father wouldn’t let her marry a Syrian immigrant, Jandali said. Simpson left and when their son was born in 1955, she gave him up for adoption. A few months later her father died and she married Jandali.

“If we had just held off for a few months, then we would have been able to raise Steve as our own, but sadly, that was not the case,” Jandali said. “We often spoke of our son and how we both wished he was with us, especially when Joanne gave birth to Steve’s sister, Mona. But nothing to do with Joanne and I was ever meant to be.”

Jandali said he loved Simpson deeply. But after moving to Syria, the couple split up and Simpson returned to the United States with Mona. Joanne remarried and her daughter took her new husband’s name.

Mona Simpson is now a novelist and professor at UCLA. Her first novel, Anywhere But Here, was published in 1987 and made into a 1999 movie starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman.

Jandali remarried twice but did not have more children. Last year he told the Saudi Gazette his father was also a self-made millionaire.

Jandali says he has never phoned Jobs but has sent him emails on his birthday.

“I can’t remember exactly what I wrote in them,” he told the Post. “But I know they were very short and to the point. I would wish him ‘Happy Birthday’ and continued good health, and sign them with my name, and not ‘dad.’”

He said he did it out of respect for Paul and Clara Jobs, the working-class couple who raised Jobs.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“…I don’t want to take their place. I just would like to get to know this amazing man I helped in a very small way to produce.”

Other notable people who were given up for adoption include Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, who was orphaned, rights activist Malcolm X, former U.S. president Gerald Ford and baseball great Babe Ruth.