c --orJ\'_-or-rrr~~ •••••*...... rnu[)u~lYIdJ •• _ " •••••- ••••••• I....,.,..-~'~----.~-~

Fish Hoek has its own matinee idolGARTHKIN6

Those of us who are middle-agedor older remember well theplethora of picture book stories

which were churned out by the thou-sands, year after year, mostly in the'1960s and 1970sera.

Foremost among the dashing, heroes of these simplistic but endear-

ing black and white photograph sto-ries, or "picture books" was a young,shy English-speaking electrician fromVereeniging, who could barely speakAfrikaans, and whose handsome pro-me and manly physique later cata-pulted him to fame and feature filmstardom, particularly among theAfrikaans-speaking community ofSouth Africa.

A somewhat forgotten icon, Leon leRoux, now 76, lives out his retirementdays in a modest semi-detached cot-tage in Silverglades, Fish Hoek andretains a remarkable collection of hisglory years, having outlived twowives, Colleen and Carol.

Those years included starring'roles in the enormously successfullocal feature mm productions of "Deb-bie"; "Die Kavaliers"; "KrugerMiljoene"; "Sabateurs"; "Ruiter in dieNag"; "Diamonds are Dangerous" andothers.

In these wonderful old bioscopepictures he worked with a plethora ofAfrikaans theatre and movie greats -people like Siegfried Mynhardt, KarelTrichardt, Louis van Niekerk, BrianO'Shaugnessy, Kobus Roussouw,Derek de Villiers, Hans Strijdom, BillBrewer and Brenda Bell, to name justafew.

Leon was born in 1934in Vereenig-ing, attended the same school as thelegendary Juliet Prowse (who laterdated Frank Sinatra and Elvis Pres-ley) and in the mid-1950s landed a jobas a model for a Lifebuoy soap advert.

A succession of modelling con-tracts developed and in the late 1970sJuliet Prowse introduced Leon to'

Stanley Baker, who acted in thefamous film "The Guns of Navarone".One thing led to another involving thethen Northcliff Fim.Studio in Johan-nesburg, where he was given a screentest for the "Debbie" role, which hewon.

"I was very shy. I sweated a bit try-ing to sound like an Afrikaner," saidLeon. "I could barely speak the lan-guage and eventually they decided todub in another voice because myaccent was all wrong. I think thatmany of the professional actors sawme as this 'shy, unprofessional, Eng-Iish electrician' who got lucky."

Despite this "Debbie" was a hit andhe was offered more leading film rolesin quick, with his understanding ofAfrikaans improving, his accentimproving until it was spot-on - andhis fellows in the industry began towarm to him, and he to them.

He remembers many of them,some of whom have died, With affec-tion.

His income in the 1960s from hispicture book modelling resulted inlong stretches of RI 800a week, a con-siderable sum then. He appeared reg-ularly in photo-comic series, includ-ing "Sister Theresa", "Doctor Marius·Hugo" and "The Flying Doctor".

In his prime, Leon received about500 fan letters every week.

I watched "Debbie" and "Die Kava-liers" with Mr Le Roux at his homeand marvelled particularly at the"Debbie" movie.

The cinematography was incredi-bly clear and bright, and well framed,beautifully highlighting the lost worldof upper-class Afrikaner society inHillbrow and Pretoria in the 1960s.

The beehive hairstyles, the fantas-tic frocks, the cars, the solidly hoistedand well covered bosoms, the genteelmannerisms,. the amazing interiordesign and exterior architecture ofthe well-chosen sets was mesmerising,despite a somewhat naive plot, basedon the book "Groenkoring" by Trana

• Left: Leon le Roux was a popular model for manyadvertisements in the 1960s.

• Above: Leon today, at home in Silverglades, Fish Hoek

du Toit.Interestingly, not one black face appeared in any

of the many scenes, including crowd scenes'.The movie caused a stir for two reasons: there is ,.

a premarital affair between two Tukkies studentswhich results in pregnancy; abortion is consideredand rejected and the baby is given up for adoption.The only "sex scene" in themovie is the two youngpeople in a car in a hailstorm, their faces locked intoeach other's.

The fact that premarital sex and abortion issueswere even dealt with was bad enough, but whatreally got some tannies going Was that the lead actor,Leon, was 29, and hIS cp.-star Susan VanOudsthoornwas 17.All this was enodgh to prompt the censors togive the film a four-IS age restriction.

The untimely death of his first. wife Colleeen(then 39)when Leon was 40was a major setback.

"I began to lose my ability to remember mylines. My heart wasn't in it and I took a long break".

A "break" which eventually turned out to bepermanent as Leon went into real estate in Johan-nesburg, did some electrical work, moved to Dur-ban where he met his second wife, Carol, a success-ful businesswomen whotragically also did not Ioutlive Leon.

Eventually after a long loop of life which saw sev-eral sojourns in Vancouver, Canada, where he rev-elled in salmon fishing,, "I moved to Fish Hoek in 2007for family connec-tions - my sons live nearby with their families - andFish Hoek reminds me so much of Vancouver," hesaid.

It was a privilege to sit with the icon of a now-van-ished time and watch the movies of a gentle era.

In the multi-media gabble of Facebook/Twitter,DVDs, iPods and idiotic bass thumps, the ultranaivete and richly homespun photo-book and bio-scopic antics of Leon and his like are curiouslyrefreshing - and deserve recognition in the annals ofSouth Africa's social history.

I

1