Stanley Jawitz

(Cape Town, **/**/1931 – Johannesburg, 13/04/1966). Actor. Though born in Cape Town, Stanley Jawitz was educated at Yeoville Boys Primary School and matriculated from King Edward VII High School in Johannesburg. At 19 he worked his way to Europe as a steward on a ship. According to newspaper reports he also visited the United States and spent seven months in New York and Hollywood, trying to break into movies. He was making a living as a commercial traveler and also ran a small ice cream factory when Austrian director Walter Klapper spotted him on the streets of Hillbrow and recruited him to play one of the leads in Immel Botha’s independent production Desert Inn (1958), in which he co-starred with the equally unknown Thelma Verran, as well as Fiona Fraser and Pieter Hauptfleisch.

There is a record of South African-born Stanley Ivan Jawitz arriving in New York, first as a tourist in 1953 and then on board the Ile de France in 1955. However, the second time he was immediately deported, as he was a stowaway. In 1956 he married Rachel Shishler in London and in 1957 the couple travelled to South Africa. After the completion of Desert Inn, Jawitz returned to London. Subsequently he and another South African were convicted of an attempted bank robbery and he was sentenced to seven years in prison. On 30th March 1966, the wife and young son of Johannesburg multi-millionaire Bernard Glazer were kidnapped. The kidnappers demanded ₤70.000 for their release, but though the ransom was paid, within two weeks those involved were apprehended, including the alleged mastermind, Stanley Jawitz. While being questioned by the police in an apartment block in Hillbrow, Jawitz jumped to his death from the twelfth floor of the building. (FO)

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