Violet Woolls-Sampson

Violet Woolls-Sampson (b. 19/08/1908- d. **/**/****) was an actress.

Biography

Violet Woolls-Sampson, generally known as Binkie, was the youngest daughter of Sir Aubrey and Lady Woolls-Sampson. Her father had taken a prominent part in the Jameson Raid and subsequently became the commanding officer of the Imperial Light Horse during the South African War. When she and her sister were born, his profession was given as mining engineer. When they were young, both she and Patricia (Puppie) frequently performed in charity concerts and were fairy attendants in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1914) when it was staged at the Country Club. Violet was given the role of Flossie Mackenzie, the young girl who is abducted in the first film version of H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain (1919), directed by H. Lisle Lucoque. A.O. Glisson and Florence Roberts played her parents. She must have had some talent as a dancer, because in 1926 she won a charleston competition and at one stage toured with Ronald Frankau’s Cabaret Kittens. She does not seem to have featured in any other films, but her third husband, Dirk Illing, had acted in Die Bou van ‘n Nasie (Joseph Albrecht & Andries A. Pienaar/1938) before they were married in 1945.

(Note: Though she was cast as Violet Woolls-Sampson and was popularly known as Binkie, her baptism certificate gives her first name as Rhoda, while her father’s death certificate refers to her as Hope.)

Sources

S.A. Pictorial, 18 January 1919

Parsons, Neil - Black and white bioscope: making movies in Africa 1899 to 1925 (2018)

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