Don Leonard

Don Leonard (1925-2002) was an actor, painter, fine arts lecturer and a lay preacher.

Biography

Don (Wilson Sawyer Arthur) Leonard was born in Winburg on 5 April 1925 to Susanna Gerhardina Frederika Leonard and an unknown father. For some 15 years he was a lecturer in fine arts at what later became the Rand College of Education in Coronationville and during the 1970s he occasionally exhibited his work at various venues, including the Goodman Gallery in 1974. He came to acting relatively late in life when Emil Nofal cast him in Kimberley Jim (1963), but is known to have appeared in 29 films, as well as in the television series 99 Caroline Street (1979). Though some critics saw him primarily as a comedy actor, he proved that he could also handle dramatic roles, notably in the films of Jans Rautenbach. Besides his undoubted talent, he had the advantage that his physical appearance made him instantly recognizable. He seems to have made only one stage appearance, which was in John Higgins’s production of Of Mice and Men (1975), based on the novella by John Steinbeck. Staged at the Lake Theatre, it starred Joe Stewardson as George and Ken Gampu as Lennie. As an African actor, the latter had to get official permission from the authorities to appear on stage with his white colleagues. Leonard’s acting career came to an end when he became a born again Christian and joined the Rhema Bible Church, where he was a lay preacher and evangelist. He had married Jean Kathleen Dowling in 1950. He died in Randburg on 27 June 2002 and his wife passed away just a month later.

Sources

Tucker, 1997. p. 315.

Obituary by Jo Prins published in Beeld, 22 June 2002.

IMDb [1].

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