Adele Fillis

(b. Calcutta, 02/01/1891 – d. Natal, 1960). Adele Vincenta Fillis was the daughter of Frank Fillis, a circus proprietor and showman who toured South Africa during the turn of the 19th century. 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, Fillis 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 and their son, Laurence Gandar, was to become the crusading anti-apartheid editor of the Rand Daily Mail. (FO)

To use for Personalities

Sources

Gutsche, Thelma - The history and social significance of motion pictures in South Africa 1895-1940

van der Merwe, Floris - Frank Fillis: the story of a circus legend

S.A. Pictorial, 5 May 1917

S.A. Pictorial, 19 April 1919

S.A. Pictorial, 13 March 1920

S.A. Pictorial, 29 April 1922

https://sites.google.com/site/mnrrdgcmntyasctn/history-of-manor-gardens

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