Frank Secker

(b. Kingston, Surrey, **/**/1906 - d. South Africa, **/**/1962). Actor, screenwriter, narrator. British-born Francis Bernard Secker was an actor and screenwriter, but by many South Africans he will always be remembered as the voice of the newsreel African Mirror, its Rhodesian equivalent Federation News and as the English-language narrator of numerous documentaries from African Film Productions, including Joseph Albrecht’s After sixty years (1946), made for the Johannesburg City Council (the Afrikaans-language versions often featured the voices of either Jan Schutte or Gert van den Bergh).

He seems to have come to South Africa in 1928, but at some stage returned to England to try his luck as an actor and in October 1937 he travelled to the United States. IMDb lists The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden and Turn Around, two 1937 television shorts both made by Eric Crozier in which he featured, and in the same year he also had a role in the play Wanted for Murder, staged at London's Lyceum Theatre. Back in South Africa he had major roles in George and Margaret and The Dominant Sex, both produced in 1939 by Natala Korel and later in The Philadelphia Story and The Little Foxes, both 1946.

African Mirror's first sound version was launched on 15 July 1939 and after a few months of experimentation, Frank Secker settled in as its official commentator. He modeled himself on the likes of British Movietone's Leslie Mitchell and Geoffrey Sumner and became part of the South African movie going experience. While he occasionally wrote the scripts for the documentaries he narrated, he was usually only credited as narrator. The directors he worked for included Emil Nofal, Donald Swanson, Kurt Baum, Jan Perold, David Millin, Raymond Hancock and Dick Reucassel. He was married to Sybil Marian Westmacott. (FO)

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