Hettie Uys

Hettie Uys (b. 1924) was an occasional film actress.

Biography

Hester Jacoba van Rooyen was born on 14 January 1924 and married a fellow mathematics teacher, Jacobus Johannes Uys, in Boksburg on 24 May 1945. After their marriage they settled on a farm in what was then the Northern Transvaal (today’s Limpopo Province). The farm was to be the location of Jamie Uys’s first film. Daar Doer in die Bosveld. It was shot in 1949/1950 with a second-hand 16mm camera and because there was no funding of any kind, it was virtually a one-man show. As a result Hettie Uys became an actress by default, playing the love interest opposite her husband. She acted in four more films for him – 50-50 (1953), Daar Doer in die Stad (1954), Die Bosvelder (1958) and Lord Oom Piet (1962) – and her only film with another director was Elmo de Witt’s Debbie (1965), which was produced by Jamie Uys Films. She is also credited as one of the animators on Beautiful People (1974).

The couple had three children. Their daughters Kobie and Marietjie both made a brief appearance in Daar Doer in the Bosveld and Marietjie had a major role in Daar Doer in die Stad. Their son, Wynand, played the title role in Dirkie / Lost in the Desert (1969). Previously he had a part in his father’s Die Professor en die Prikkelpop / The Professor and the Beauty Queen (1967) and in a short made for the Union Castle line entitled A Farmer Sailed over the Ocean / Hoe Ry die Boere Seil-Seil So, produced by Jamie Uys, but directed by Judex C. Viljoen.