Cecile Buurman

Cecile Buurman (1918-1998). Actress, teacher.

Biography

She was born on 27 April 1918 in Riversdal in the Southern Cape. She was a lover of classical music and had a vast knowledge of wild flowers, especially from the Riversdal region. She died in February 1998 at the age of 79 after a long illness.

Career

She started her professional career as drama teacher at the University of Stellenbosch, working closely with the legendary Cape director Robert Mohr. She later taught speech and drama at the Johannesburg College of Education and still later at the University of Pretoria.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

She was in the cast of Robert Mohr’s 1958 productions of both Hamlet and Mother Courage.

Involved with educational drama, taking the first English schools programme on tour for NTO from 1961 - circa 1964, with Esther van Ryswyk, Madeleine Heyns and Ernst Eloff.

She wrote theatre reviews for Die Vaderland, Die Transvaler and Beeld and she was an adjudicator for ATKV drama festivals.

She had roles in the radio serials Die Geheim van Nantes and Die Wit Sluier, the film Die Sersant en die Tigermoth and in the television series Skooldae and Nommer Asseblief and A Jury of Her Peers.

Sources

Natal Daily News, 31 May 1983.

Grütter, Wilhelm, CAPAB 25 Years, 1987. Unpublished research. p 90.

Tribute written by Daan du Toit, published in Die Volksblad, 12 February 1998.

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