Tessa Laubscher

(b. 18/05/1934). Actress, jeweller, silversmith. Born Tessa Marie-Louise Laubscher. When the Johannesburg Repertory Society celebrated their 25th anniversary in 1953, they staged Anita Loos's Gigi, based on the book by Colette, with a young Tessa Laubscher in the title role. In the same year she played Rosalind in As You Like It for the Children’s Theatre. Directed by Taubie Kushlick, it was an open-air production performed in Johannesburg’s Rhodes Park. In 1955 Ruth Oppenheim staged John Van Druten’s I Am a Camera, based on the novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, at the Windmill Theatre in Johannesburg and cast Tessa Laubscher as Sally Bowles. Her only film role was in Elmo de Witt’s Satanskoraal (1959), produced by Jamie Uys, in which she was the girl who is supposed to distract the hero.

She was initially married to John Rudd, who had played Orlando opposite her in As You Like It, and then to Oliver Robin Tetley. Her third marriage was to sculptor Michael Fleischer (1915-1991) and under his guidance she started working first with copper and later also with silver. Under her married name of Tessa Fleischer she became a jeweller of note. When Desmond Tutu was inaugurated as Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, a newly commissioned crosier or pastoral staff presented to him by his congregation was designed by her. (FO)