Adele Fillis

(b. Calcutta, 01/01/1891 – d. Natal, **/**/1960). Circus equestrienne, actress. Adele Vicenta Fillis was the daughter of Frank Fillis, a prominent circus proprietor and showman who toured South Africa and the Far East during the turn of the 19th century. Her mother was Elisa Maria Vicenta Mayol, a Spanish-born circus performer. Born in India, she performed as a highly regarded and popular equestrienne, first in her father’s shows and thereafter in her divorced mother’s rival circus. Subsequently she appeared in four silent features: Fallen Leaves (Dick Cruikshanks/1919), Copper Mask (Joseph Albrecht/1919), Prester John (Dick Cruikshanks/1920) and The Vulture’s Prey (Dick Cruikshanks & William Bowden/1922), all for African Film Productions. S.A. Pictorial reported that for Copper Mask she did her own stunt work, taking a four-metre dive into a river in order to rescue a “drowning man”. She married Harry Vine Gandar, who acted with her in The Vulture’s Prey. Their son, Laurence Gandar, was to become the crusading anti-apartheid editor of the Rand Daily Mail. Cecil Fillis, who acted in The Man Who Was Afraid (1920), was her brother, while Frank Fillis Jr, who appeared in King Solomon’s Mines (1918), was her half-brother. (FO)

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