The Arab Slave Trade (622 A.D. – 1900): An Abomination!

The Arab Slave Trade (622 A.D. – 1900): An Abomination!

By

Ross Dix-Peek

The Arab Slave Trade was truly abominable, and yet, in line with life’s many imponderables, has received very little censure. Not least of all by Black Africans who rail against “Colonialism” and the transatlantic slave trade, but heartily embrace Arabs and Muslims (including those of North Africa) as their dear friends, their erstwhile colleagues-in-arms; the very people who enslaved and subjugated millions of their African brethren for over a Millennium.
The Arab Slave Trade flourished for over a thousand-years, encompassing West Asia, North Africa (where for instance, the Moroccan Sultan, Moulay Ismail, whose sobriquet was “The Bloodthirsty”, raised a corps of 150 000 Black slaves, terrorizing the country and forcing it into submission), East Africa and even parts of Europe.


Although the human cargo comprised mostly Africans and Middle Eastern peoples, many others were also enslaved, including Slavs (whence comes the word “slave”, and who, during the early years of Islamic history, made up most of the slaves who were captured and subjugated), Persians, Turks, Georgians, Armenians, Mamluks and Berbers, as well as thousands-upon-thousands of Europeans ( the figure is surmised to be as high as one million) who, between the 16th and 19th- Centuries, were captured by Arabs (the infamous and bloodthirsty Barbary Pirates, of North Africa), becoming vassals of the Ottoman Empire.


Historians estimate that between 622 A.D. and 1900, roughly 11 to 18 Million Black African slaves alone (thus, just as many, or even far more, than the millions of Black Africans shipped off to “the New World” during the Transatlantic Slave Trade) crossed the Sahara Desert, the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean into slavery as labourers, soldiers and eunuchs (The French Ambassador to Turkey was surprised to meet an African eunuch from Ghana in Istanbul, in 1900). Black African slaves were forcibly removed from present-day Kenya, Tanzania, the Sudan, Western Ethiopia and other parts of East Africa, and shipped off to modern-day Iraq (where during the 9th and 10th Centuries black slaves, known as the “Zanj” (which means “Blacks”) rebelled and took Basrah, holding out for fifteen years against the Abbasid Caliphs), Iran, Kuwait, Turkey, Pakistan, India and elsewhere.


It is also rather ironic that the much-despised “Colonialists”, in the form of Britain and the Royal Navy, served as a major catalyst in suppressing and eventually bringing an end to the Arab Slave Trade. East Africa especially, suffered under the yoke of Arab slave traders, where, with the exception of the Masai and the Somalis, all the tribal groups of East Africa were “milked” by despicable Arab slave traders. Although the Arab slave trade stretched as far as West Africa, the centre of the Arab Slave Trade was the Island of Zanzibar (which literally translates to the “Coast of Blacks”), situated off the east coast of Africa. “Black Ivory” or the trade in black Africans was intrinsic to Zanzibar’s rise. During the early 19th Century, the Swahili of East Africa, in a bid to oust the Portuguese, turned for military assistance (rather foolishly) to the Arab state of Oman, which resulted in the Swahili being even more oppressed and subject to even crueler masters. By the 1820s the Omani Arabs had, together with mercenary troops from Baluchistan (now a part of Pakistan), seized command of most of the Swahili seaboard from northern Kenya to southern Tanzania. With them came the “greatest misery inflicted upon East Africa’s peoples – a steadily mounting slave trade which continued on an appalling scale far into the 19th-Century”.


In 1832, Seyyid Said, the Sultan of Oman, relocated his seat of power from Muscat to Zanzibar, his aim being simply to make the Island the hub of a commercial network based on slavery. Accordingly, Zanzibar served as a profitable market for Slaves (as well as ivory, gum, coral and cloves), 40, 000 slaves being sold at Zanzibar’s market each year (the number rising rapidly higher still). It has been estimated that as many as two-thirds of Zanzibar’s population were, at one time or another, slaves! Some were put to work on the Sultan’s clove plantations on the Island, but legions more were transported to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, or sold to European buyers for transport to the Americas. There was, as recent as 1961, an Arab sultan still astride the throne of Zanzibar, and when Britain decided to withdraw from the Island, the Arab community, of 50 000, together with 20 000 Asian immigrants, believed, rather arrogantly, that they could remain in power; sixty-eight Arabs were killed in the subsequent anti-Arab rioting which accompanied the 1961 general election, while another 400 were injured, and in 1964, after the Sultan fled from Zanzibar in his Luxury yacht, another 5000 Arabs were slaughtered, some Arab families being bundled into dhows and pushed out to sea; for Zanzibar, many years of Arab subjugation had finally come to an end (but, I digress) .


During the Arab slave trade, Arab dhows would normally make the long arduous sea-trip from Zanzibar to Arabia in 17-18 days, and upon “arrival boys up to age 10 fetched a maximum of 15 $, teenagers up to 30$”, while females “cost more and might go for 40$, if pretty”. These poor, wretched souls were often used for sexual purposes and then returned to the slave trader concerned, at a reduced price. It is said that the Habashi, or Abyssinian, females were the most highly prized, while their male compatriots were also in demand as “servants in princely house-holds”. The slaves were taken up the Persian Gulf and landed at Bushire for transfer to the Persian interior, or at Basra, where its human cargo was in turn destined for Mesopotamia and southwest Turkey, but Arab slavers were to be found plying their opprobrious trade as far south as modern-day Mozambique. An example of the many Arab slave ports on Africa’s east coast, is Ujiji, a slave-trading centre founded by the Arabs around 1840, expressly for this sordid purpose. David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer and missionary detested the place and was of the opinion that the slavers of Ujiji (like those of Kilwa in modern-day Mozambique) were the vilest of the vile.


It is interesting to relate how Black Africans today, as well as African-Americans, talk of white racists, but contemporary sources show quite distinctly that Arabs and Muslims despised blacks, thinking them atavistic, inferior and sub-human.
The Very word “Kaffir”, abhorred by blacks, especially South Africa’s black folk, and solely attributed to the white man, is actually of Arab origin, and means “un-believer” or “Infidel”. There is even record of it being used by a Javanese prince, Dipo Negora, to describe the Dutch (who were whites), and at one stage the Muslim or Mogul Rulers of India even referred to those Indians not of the Muslim faith, as “Kaffirs”. For the most part, Arab slavers did not venture deep into the African interior; that service was provided by Africans themselves, African kings and chieftains very eager to sell their own people for luxuries and essentials, notably cloth, firearms, beads, metals and tobacco. These African potentates became immensely wealthy, and although it is a verity Africa prefers to shun, Africans themselves made slavery possible; it was they who deracinated their own lands and sold fellow-Africans to the Arabs, and White slavers alike. In the mid-19th Century alone, probably as many as 100, 000 Black Africans, were sold into enslavement each year. The irony is that it was the British, who had abolished the Transatlantic Slave Trade in 1807 and brought into the effect the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire (1833), who vehemently opposed this vile trade, and who subsequently brought it to an end. In 1822 the Sultan of Oman had agreed, under British pressure, to limit the range of the trade from Zanzibar to exclude India and Mauritius (the Moresby Treaty), while the Hamerton treaty of 1845 was designed to further strangle the Arab slave trade (but in practice it had very little effect). It was only in 1871, after a Parliamentary Select Committee had been appointed, which promptly decided that the only feasible policy should be to “declare a complete prohibition of the trade” that any real progress was made. Sir Bartle Frere was entrusted with the task of persuading Zanzibar to accept and implement the total abolition of slavery. Quite obviously, this was not accepted and it was only when Sir John Kirk made it quite clear to Barghash, the then Sultan of Zanzibar, that if he did not comply with the demands, then the only recourse would be for the Royal Navy to blockade the Island completely; of course, that would have been disastrous for the Sultan and Zanzibar. In the event, Barghash signed the treaty of total abolition and “the long, difficult and dangerous task of implementing the treaty began”, but it was not until the end of the 19th century that “the last slave caravan was caught on the shores of Lake Nyasa, and it was 1911 before the final compensation payments were completed in Zanzibar”. This vile crime against humanity (which has, I believe, been aptly and correctly described by at least one source, as an example of Genocide) had finally been brought to an end, although there are accounts of Arab slave-owning nobility in Arabia, Yemen and elsewehere, into the 1920s.


Furthermore, Saudi Arabia’s (that so-called stalwart against terrorism) slave population amounted to, as recently as the 1950s, 450 000 souls, and in 1953, only fifty-five years ago, during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, we find visiting Sheikhs from Qatar present, together with their retinue of slaves (it seems amazing that Queen Elizabeth did not apparently suffer qualms of conscience or compunction then, but castigated Rhodesia and South Africa only a few years later, for their “racist” policies - Ah, hypocrisy!). And it can be said that the Arab Slave Trade lives still; as many as 200 000 Black Sudanese children and women having been captured as slaves during the civil war there, while many hundreds-of -thousands of Black Mauritanians have also been enslaved and used as indentured servants. It is also rather laughable, rather pathetic actually, that many African-Americans (including the American boxer, Cassius Clay, better known as Mohammad Ali)chose wholeheartedly to embrace Islam, in the guise of the “Black Muslims”, or the “Nation of Islam” as it was originally known, the very institution that had enslaved so many of their own people; resigned so many poor Blacks to perpetual servitude).


Again, where is the indignity, the moral outrage, on the part of Black Africans and African-Americans alike?
Why the conspiracy of silence?
Why are they not up in arms against the diabolical Arab Slave Trade and its woeful legacy?
Why are they not demanding compensation from all those Arab countries who were involved in the enslavement and subjugation of Black Africans?
Why not?
Because it is more convenient and profitable for Black people to rail against the “White man” and “Colonialism”, and to forever play the “Race -Card”. Shame on them all!


[Sources: Wikipedia, article - “The Arab Slave Trade”; “Haydn’s “Dictionary of Dates”, published circa 1881; “The Birth of the Modern – World Society 1815-1830”, Paul Johnson, printed in Great Britain by the Guernsey Press, 1991, pp 333-336; “The Africans”, David Lamb, “Methuen” publishers, 1984; pp 148-149; The “Library of Nations – East Africa”, Time-Life Books, printed in 1986, pp 50-51; “Livingstone’s Tribe”, Stephen Taylor, Harper Collins Publishers, 1999, p35; “Africa in Perspective”, H. Wynn-Jones, printed by Quadriga Press Ltd., London, in 1960, pp 102-103.]

The Indian Caste System: Apartheid’s Big Brother

The Indian Caste System: Apartheid’s Big Brother

By

Ross Dix-Peek

I have always found the Indian Caste system to be an almighty blight upon the history of humanity, and yet it always seems to evade vehement criticism and censure. This is rather amazing, considering that the Indian caste system pre-dates the genesis of Apartheid by over two millennia, and still thrives to this day. Politicians, activists and apologists forever proffer Apartheid as the most infamous example of segregation, together with the European Slave Trade, and Colonialism , and yet conveniently choose to forget or avoid uncomfortable truths: among these the Arab Slave Trade, which lasted over a thousand years, and in essence still continues today, in Darfur, and the Indian caste System. Why is that?


Caste is defined thus ( according to the Oxford Dictionary): “Any of the main four divisions of Hindu Society, originally those made according to functions in society.”Foremost are to be found the Brahmins, or the sacerdotal class; followed hierarchically by the Kshatrya or Chuttree (the Military class); the Vaisya, or commercial class, and the Sudras, the servile class, also known as the “Untouchables”. These distinct sections of society can trace their origin back to the Laws of Menu, a very ancient code found in India. The Laws of Menu are said to date from at least 449 B.C., which in essence means that codified laws supporting segregation in a most complex and nefarious form, were practiced in India , at least two and a half thousand years ago! Galling, when one considers that India is also the birthplace of other gross violations of human rights, including the “Thuggee Cult” (whence derives the English word “Thug”), organized and fanatical murderers who considered their many victims, fellow Indians, as sacrifices to their gods, among them Kali, the Goddess of war, and the bloodthirsty wife of Siva (how charming!); the system of ‘Suttee”, which is the killing, through immolation, of a deceased husband’s widow (how barbaric!) and Infanticide, the deliberate murder of millions of innocent females, mere babes, in favour of male offspring, in other words, sons (how civilized!).


And yet, amazingly, very few people, are even aware of the existence, let alone the origins and history of these vile systems, while supposed sentinels of Human Right’s violations, namely the U.N. and other “August” bodies, including Indians themselves, have not, it seems, bleated even a murmur in protest thereof! Where are the legions of activists who assailed the blight that was apartheid? Why are they not frothing at the mouth in absolute disgust over the system of caste, a despicable form of segregation that, in comparison, truly makes apartheid, and other malevolent misdeeds , seem benign. It is interesting to note, that it was Muhatma Gandhi who apparently said, one could tell a country by the way it treats its animals. In the country of his birth, India, a cow is sacred, while legions of Indians, human beings, still live in culturally-endorsed slavery to this day.
Why is that censure is indeed selective?
Why is it that India, together with other nations, has escaped scrutiny, while other countries have been deemed Pariahs?
Again, hypocrisy reigns supreme!

Hollywood’s South African-born Actors of the 1940s

Hollywood’s South African-born Actors of the 1930s and

by

Ross Dix-Peek

The 28 December 1895 is heralded as the birthday of cinema, for it was on that day that the Lumiere brothers made their first commercial screening at the Grand Café, 14 boulevard des Capucines, in Paris, and so began the publics infatuation with the new medium and its future “Stars”.Although South Africa’s connection with the film industry harks back many years, when it comes to famous South African-born actors, most people are only aware of the Oscar-winning actress, Charlize Theron, who won the top award in 2003 for her portrayal as a serial killer in “Monster”. But, without exaggeration the heyday of South African-born actors can be said to have been during the 1930s and 1940s, where there were to be found a healthy number of South-African-born actors in both the British film industry and Hollywood, namely Basil Rathbone, the quintessential “Sherlock Homes”; Pearl Argyle; Molly Lamont; Sybil Jason; Jeanne de Casalis; Ian Hunter,Cecil Kellaway and Louis Hayward.


Let us begin our reminiscences with Molly Lamont. Lamont was born in Boksburg, Transvaal, South Africa, on the 22 May 1911, and began her film career, as did most of her compatriots, in British movies. Five-foot four-inches in height and with grey eyes and brown hair, she began her claim to fame as a 19 year-old South African beauty queen who won a prize of a free trip to England and a film test. Her early days consisted of small and often uncredited roles, but all that changed drastically in the mid-1930s. By the time she retired from acting in 1951, Molly Lamont had more than fifty films to her credit, including, “Handle with Care”; “Seven Keys to Baldpate”; “Jalna” (1935), appearing as Pheasant Vaughn Whiteoaks ; “The Awful Truth” (1937) in which film she acted as “Barbara Vance”, Carey Grant’s fiancée; “The White Cliffs of Dover” and “Mr Skeffington”, both of which appeared in 1944. Molly Lamont passed away in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, in July, 2001.


Another well-known South-African-born dancer and actress of the 1930s, although forgotten today, was Pearl Argyle. A famous and vivacious ballerina and dancer, she was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on the 3 February 1910. Noted for her outstanding beauty and graced with dark brown eyes and hair, Argyle initially studied ballet with Rambert and Legat, making her debut in 1926 with Rambert’s company. Thereafter she became a ballerina with the Camargo Society, subsequently fulfilling the role as Principal dancer with the Vic-Wells Ballet Company from 1935-1938.Discovered by Charles B. Cochran, Pearl Argyle first appeared in films in 1932, in “That Night in London” (1932), taking the part of “Eve Desborough”; “Royal Cavalcade”, also known as “Regal Cavalcade” in the U.S.A., taking the role of “Anna Pavlova” and “Things to Come” (1936), in which film she appeared as “Catherine Cabal”. Pearl Argyle, however, died young, being just shy of her thirty-seventh birthday when she passed away in New York City on the 29 January 1947.


And then we have the celebrated child star, Sybil Jason. Imbued with a mischievous air, this famous child-star was born in Cape Town, South Africa, on the 23 November 1929. By the time she was five-years-of-age, Sybil Jason was appearing at night-clubs in London, singing, dancing, doing impressions and playing the piano! It was after appearing in “Barnacle Bill”(1935) that Irving Asher, in charge of Warner Brother’s London Studio, saw the film and subsequently arranged for Sybil to undergo a screen-test at Warner’s. She was signed up and was at the time the only child star Warner Brother’s possessed. She appeared in a total of eleven feature-films from 1935-1940, and was also featured in a number of Vitaphone shorts. Her films included “Little Big Shot” (1935), appearing as Gloria “Countess” Gibbs; “I Found Stella Parish” (1935), taking the role of “Gloria Parish”; “The Singing Kid” (1936), appearing as “Sybil Haines”; “Changing of the Guard” (1936), taking the part of “Sybil”; “The Littlest Diplomat”, taking the role of “Sybil Hardwick”; “Comet Over Broadway” (1936), as “Jackie Appleton”; “The Little Princess”, taking the part of “Becky”, a servant at Minchin Seminary and “The Bluebird” (1940), in which film she took the part of “Angela Berlingot”. Extremely popular in her day, she touched the lives of so many, and even today her movies are regularly featured on Turner Classic Movies (T.C.M.).


And, then onto Jeanne de Casalis. Born Jeanne De Casalis De Pury in Basutoland (and thus technically a southern African) on the 22 May 1897, she was a West End stage, radio, and film actress and dramatic writer, best known for her character “Mrs Feather”, and was probably better known in British film industry than in Hollywood. Five foot Four inches tall, grey-eyed and brown-haired, De Casalis was educated in France, her father being the proprietor of one of the largest corset retailers, Charnaux. She began her career in music before working in London. De Casalis appeared in plays including “The Mask of Virtue” with Vivien Leigh (1935) while her films included “Nell Gwynn” (1934), appearing as the “Duchess of Portsmouth”; Alfred Hitchcock's “Jamaica Inn” (1939); “Cottage to Let” (1941); “The Fine Feathers” (1941), as Mrs. Feather; “Medal for the General” (1944), taking the part of Lady Frome; “This Man is Mine” (1946), as Mrs. Ferguson and the “Woman Hater” (1949), appearing as Clair. De Casalis also later hosted “The Twenty Questions Murder Mystery” (1950). She was initially married to the English actor, Colin Clive, of “Frankenstein” fame, in June 1929, but was later married to her second husband, Wing Commander, Cowan Douglas Stephenson, of the Royal Air Force. She remained good friends with Vivienne Leigh and resided at Hunger Hatch, near Ashford, in Kent, until her death on 19 August, 1966.


Another South African-born actress of the 1930s and 1940s was Glynis Johns, whose career on the big screen was really only in its infancy. Born in Pretoria, South Africa, on the 5 October 1923, she was the daughter of the British stage actor, Mervyn Johns. She was born while her parents (both performers), were on a tour of South Africa. Already an accomplished ballerina at the age of twelve, Johns subsequently made her stage debut before appearing in 1937 in her first film, “South Riding”, taking the part of a peevish and tantrum-prone adolescent. Graduating to coquettish leading roles in the 1940s, she was best known during this period for taking the part of an alluring mermaid in “Miranda” (1946). However, Glynis Johns is perhaps better known to the public at large for her role as the determinedly single-minded suffragette, Mrs. Banks, in Disney’s classic movie, “Mary Poppins” (1964). She was subsequently awarded a “Tony” in the early 1970s for her performance in Broadway’s “A Little Night Music”, and was still very active in the 1990s, taking the part of a bellicose mother-in-law in the film, “The Ref” (1994) and as an old dotty aunt in “While You Were Sleeping” (1995).


And now, the men of the “Silver Screen”. We will begin with Basil Rathbone, who is, in my opinion, the quintessential Sherlock Homes. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the 13 June 1892, Johannesburg having been foundered only six-years previously. It is said that the family was forced to flee the Transvaal when Rathbone was approximately three-years-of-age, because his father, Edgar Phillip Ratbone (a mining –engineer), had been accused of being a British spy, this during the period leading up to the Second Anglo-Boer War. It is unlikely then, that the toddler Rathbone was still in Johannesburg when South Africans were introduced to the inception of cinema at Johannesburg’s “Empire Palace” in 1896.The family having “escaped” to England, Basil Rathbone attended Repton College, being far more interested in sporting pursuits than his studies, but he soon developed an interest in the thespian arts.Intent on becoming an actor, Rathbone began his acting career in 1911 with a Shakespearean Troupe in Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare. The First World War (194-1918) interrupted proceedings and Rathbone duly went off to war.He served as a second-lieutenant with the Liverpool Scottish and was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for bravery. Following the cessation of hostilities, Rathbone returned to acting and by 1921 had made his film debut, appearing in the silent film, “Innocent”. He remained on the London and New York stage until the 1930s, whereafter he abandoned his first love, theatre, for a career in film (which proved to be a sagacious move).His early films included “Captain Blood” (1935); “A Tale of Two Cities (1935); Anna Karenina (1935); “The Last Days of Pompeii” (1935); “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938); “The Tower of London (1939); “The Mark of Zorro” (1940) and he also earned two Oscar-nominations for Best-Supporting Actor as Tybalt in “Romeo and Juliet” (1936) and as King Louis XI in “If I Were A King” (1938). However 1939 can be said to have been the defining year in Basil Rathbone’s acting career, as that fateful year saw this talented actor playing his best-known and most popular character, Sherlock Holmes, in “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and in “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”. Twelve additional “Sherlock Holmes’s” films followed before Rathbone opted to return to theatre, as he felt his sole identification with the character of Sherlock Holmes was destroying his career. Rathbone was subsequently awarded a “Tony” for his portrayal as Dr. Sloper in the Broadway play, “The Heiress”. Although having entered the twilight years of his acting career, Rathbone was still an exceptionally busy man, appearing in a multitude of Television shows as well as the occasional film, including “Casanova’s Big Night” (1954); “The Court Jester” (1955); “Tales of Terror” (1962) and “A Comedy of Errors” (1964), while also touring the United States of America with his one-man show, “ An Evening with Basil Rathbone”. Sadly, Rathbone suffered a heart attack in New York on the 21 July 1967, and so came to an end the life of this gifted South-African-born actor who will, ironically and perhaps not to his liking, be remembered for his portrayal as that most determined of sleuth’s, Sherlock Holmes.


Next, we have Louis Hayward, born Seafield Grant, in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the 19 March 1909. Hayward was educated in England and on the Continent, and after deciding upon acting as a career, he was backed in his endeavours by the famous British playwright and film producer, Noel Coward. Following a spell with the British film industry, Hayward subsequently journeyed across the Atlantic to New York, and Broadway. His exposure there brought him a Hollywood film contract, acting in his first American film, “The Flame Within” (1935). However, Hayward’s first major role was as the dashing officer, Denis Moore, in “Anthony Adverse” (1936). But, perhaps his most notable role was that of the Simon Templar character in the “Saint in New York” (1938), appearing the following year in the “The Man in the Iron Mask” (1939), and in the “The Son of Monte Cristo” (1940). During the Second World War, Hayward joined the U.S.Marine Corps, commanding a photographic unit that filmed the Battle of Tarawa in a documentary entitled “With the Marines at Tarawa”, earning him the U.S. Bronze Star. Hayward later returned to Hollywood and appeared in Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” (1945), which was a resounding success. Additional movies included “The Fortunes of Captain Blood” and “House by the River”, where-after he ventured into the realm of television, acting in the captivating television series, “The Lone Wolf”.He eventually took leave of the thespian arts in the mid-1970s, subsequently succumbing to lung cancer at Palm Springs, California, on the 21 February 1985.


Then there was Cecil Kellaway, yet another South African-born actor of the 1930s and 1940s. Kellaway was born in Cape Town (The “Mother City”), South Africa, in 1890. His films include Wuthering Heights (1939) – as Earnshaw ; Intermezzo (1939) – as Charles Moler; The Invisible Man Returns (1940) – as Inspector Sampson; The House of the Seven Gables (1940); Brother Orchid (1940); The Mummy's Hand (1940); The Letter (1940); A Very Young Lady (1941); I Married a Witch (1942); It Ain't Hay (1943); Mrs. Parkington (1944); Practically Yours (1944); Love Letters (1945); Kitty (1945) as Thomas Gainsborough; The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) – as Nick Smith (an absolute classic); Unconquered (1947); The Luck of the Irish (1948) ; Joan of Arc (1948) and Portrait of Jennie (1948). Like fellow South African-born actor, Basil Rathbone, Kellaway was nominated for two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, for his roles in “Luck of the Irish” (1948), in which film he played the role of Horace, and “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” (1968). Cecil Kellaway acted well into the 1960s, and died in Hollywood, California, in February 1973, aged seventy-nine-years.


Another South African-born actor was Ian Hunter. Standing six-feet tall and graced with grey eyes and brown hair, Hunter was also born in Cape Town, on the 13 June 1900, during the Second Anglo-Boer War, and first achieved a reputation on the English and American stage before his screen debut in 1934. He appeared in the film, “The Ring” in 1927, but he is best remembered for his appearances in “That Certain Woman” (1937) with Bette Davis; “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938), as King Richard the Lionheart; “The Little Princess” (1939), as Captain Reginald Crewe and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1941) as Dr. Lanyon. Hunter returned to the Robin Hood genre in the 1955 Television series The Adventures of Robin Hood in the recurring role of Sir Richard of the Lea. He also appeared in “The Battle of the River Plate” in 1956, as Captain Woodhouse of H.M.S. Ajax .


Last, but certainly by no means least, we have Bruce Lester (born Bruce Somerset Lister), who was born in Johannesburg in 1912. He received his education in England, and began his acting career in London in the mid-1930s, his first film being “The Girl in the Flat” (1934). A string of B-movies followed, including “To Be a Lady”, “Death at Broadcasting House” (1934), “Crime over London”,”Mayfair Melody” (1937) and “Thistledown” (1938). He then moved to Hollywood and it was then that his name was changed to “Lester”.His Hollywood films included “Boy Meets Girl” (1938);and ”Pride and Prejudice” (1940),appearing as the charming “Mr Bingley”. During WWII Lester was to appear in typical propaganda-movies of the time, including “A Yank in the RAF”; “Eagle Squadron” and “Desperate Journey”,which starred Errol Flynn, and after the war acted in a few more films before opting to work as a story analyst for Paramount Pictures, passing away in June 2008, aged 96.


So when your eyes next alight upon South Africa’s “Golden Girl”, Charlize Theron, please spare a thought for those other South African denizen’s of the “Silver Screen”, who during the 1930s and 1940s not only wooed countless fans but upheld South Africa’s name with pride. Here’s to these intrepid South African-born film pioneers of the 1930s and 1940s. May their names live forever more