Siegfried Mynhardt

Siegfried Mynhardt (1909-1996) was a venerated bilingual (Afrikaans and English) actor and director. (Often known simply as “Siegie”).

Biography

Born Siegfried Charles Ferdinand Mijnhardt in Johannesburg, the son of the minister of religion and translator C.F. Mynhardt. The family adopted the local spelling of Mynhardt, so the son became known as Siegfried Charles Ferdinand Mynhardt or simply Siegfried Mynhardt) Affectionately known as "Siegie Mynhardt" or "Siggie Mynhardt".

There is some conflicting information on his dates birth and death: while both the Wikipedia entry and the IMDb [1] entry on Mynhardt have them as 5 March 1906 to 28 March 1996, (making him 90 years old at the time of his passing), the Afrikaans Wikipedia gives his death as 29 March and the GENi website has birth and death as 15 March 1909 – 5 March 1996 (making him 86).

Mynhardt grew up in the Wynburg area ofJohannesburg and began his career as actor for the Hanekom Geselskap (Company) at the age of 17, going on to become a professional actor and a sought after and highly regarded performer on stage and screen .

He was married to Jocelyn Rose Fenton (1919-1981) and they had three children. Siegie died of pneumonia in in Johannesburg on 28 March, 1996.

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

Companies worked for

Siegfried Mynhardt initially worked for most of the Afrikaans companies in the 1930s, including the André Huguenet Company (1933) and the Hanekom Geselskap. Later founded his own company in the 1940s.

Before the war he went to England for a while, where he worked for the Charles Hickman Company and performed at London's Old Vic. During the war years, he returned to South Africa however, to perform for in both Afrikaans and English for the Krugersdorp Municipal Dramatic and Operatic Society (KMDOS), the Gwen ffrangçon-Davies / Marda Vanne Company (at the Standard Theatre) and his own company between 1941 and 1946. (The latter was formed in 1941, its first production being Die Rooi Pruik in that year).

Later on he also performed in plays put on by the National Theatre Organisation (NTO , 1947-1961), for example serving as part of their first touring company throughout 1948, working with people like André Huguenet, Leon Gluckman, Frank Wise, Lorna Cowell, Vivienne Drummond, Mathilda Hanekom and Enone van den Bergh.

He also did work for the Cockpit Players and the newly established Transvaal Performing Arts Council (PACT.

Plays performed in

He started his career as actor in the play Onskuldig Veroordeel (Hendrik Hanekom 1929). Other early plays were Napoleon se Wasvrou (1930), Die Swart Hand (1933) and Johannes van Wyk (1933).

In the 1940s he did Die Rooi Pruik (an Afrikaans translation of Ladies in Retirement, translated by his father), working with Berdine Grunewald and Lydia Lindeque. Was so popular, it was taken North to be performed for the South African troops in the war. Other plays done in these years were What Every Woman Knows (1943), Blithe Spirit (1944), Milestones (1944), Squadron X (SAAF 1944), Flare Path (1943-4), Laburnum Grove (1946), A Man With Red Hair (1946), A Month in the Country (1946), Lady Frederick (1947, presented by The Munro-Inglis Company, their last Standard Theatre production).

In 1947 he co-directed and performed in the Afrikaans Hamlet with Anna Neethling-Pohl, playing Laertes himself. It was staged at His Majesty's Theatre and starred André Huguenet as the Prince of Denmark, and Michal Grobbelaar as Marcellus. The immense success of this production would be influential in the founding of the National Theatre Organisation (NTO) in South Africa.

He then appeared a number of productions in the NTO's inaugural season, including Altyd my Liefste (NTO 1947/8), Dear Brutus (NTO 1948), Nag het die Wind Gebring (1948/49) and An Inspector Calls (1948/49).

During the 1950s he continued working for NTO and other companies, appearing in 'Macbeth (in Afrikaans, 1950), Hassan (NTO 1950), Die Vrek (NTO 1951), Volpone (1952), (Volpone enjoyed another run at the Benoni Town Hall later that same year), Twelfth Night (1953), Someone Waiting (Reps 1954), Shakespeare's Hamlet, produced, directed and played in by Margaret Inglis at the Windmill Theatre in 1955, Periandros van Korinthe (NTO 1956), Bitter Einde (NTO 1956-7), Oupa Kanniedood (NTO 1957), Bohaai oor .n Otjie (NTO 1956), The School for Scandal (NTO 1958), Die Jakkalsstreke van Scapino, 1958, Voorlopige Vonnis (NTO 1958), he played Dauphin in Shaw's Saint Joan, which Leon Gluckman directed for the National Theatre in 1959, also starring Kita Redelinghuys and in Moeder Hanna (1959).

The 1960s, after the demise of NTO, he initially worked for a wider range of companies, though later working more frequently for the Transvaal Performing Arts Council's prestigious main company. His many roles included appearances in The Caretaker (1960), Rookery Nook (Cockpit Players 1960), in the hit musical comedy Irma la Douce, staged by the Brian Brooke Company in 1960, in the Cockpit Players productions of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker and Paddy Chayefsky's prizewinning The Tenth Man at the Playhouse in 1961 with actors Michael McGovern and Nigel Hawthorne. He also appeared in Wie de drommel is Paskwaal? (NTO 1961), Beyond the Fringe (Cockpit Players, opening October 1961), Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, followed by Tennessee Williams’s The Night of the Iguana which was staged at the Playhouse by the Cockpit Players in 1962, Dear Liar (1962), The Affair (PACT 1963), The Cherry Orchard (PACT, 1963), The Playboy of the Western World (PACT 1963), Romeo and Jeanette (PACT 1963), The Miser for PACT in 1964, Ring Round the Moon (PACT 1964), A Sleep of Prisoners (PACT 1965), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (PACT 1965), Rashomon (PACT 1965), The Devils (PACT 1966), Faust (H.B. Thom Theatre 1966), The Beaux' Stratagem (PACT 1966), The Mask and the Face (PACT 1967), Mourning Becomes Electra (PACT 1967), [[The Imaginary Invalid]] (PACT 1967), Heartbreak House (PACT 1967), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (PACT 1968) You Never Can Tell (PACT 1968), The Fighting Cock (PACT 1968), Hadrian VII, directed by Robert Mohr for PACT at the Alexander Theatre in 1969, A Month in the Country, which Leonard Schach directed for PACT at the Alexander Theatre in 1969, The Magistrate (PACT 1969).

From 1970 onwards followed Ouers-Vra (CAPAB]] 1970), King John (PACT 1970), Child's Play (PACT 1971), Koning Lear (CAPAB 1971), Hotel Paradiso (1971), Gentlemen (1972), Do You Know the Milky Way? (PACT 1972), Black Comedy (PACT 1972), Gentlemen, Skoene-skoene (PACT, 1973) Sagmoedige Neelsie (1973), Iemand Om voor Nag Te Sê (PACT 1973), Die Verhoor (PACT 1973), Charley's Aunt (PACT 1973), A Macbeth which was staged at the Alexander Theatre in 1973, Twigs (PACT 1974), Drie Susters (KRUIK 1976), Die Nag van Legio (CAPAB 1976), Plaston: DNS-Kind, 1981, Comrades (PACT 1986).

His work as director

As director: He produced Mademoiselle in 1942, he directed Laura for the Reps in 1947, directed As ons twee eers getroud is (1952) and the famous Ben Travers farce, Rookery Nook at the Civic Theatre for PACT in December 1963.

Anthony Farmer designed an intimate dinner theatre in the place of the Siegfried Mynhardt Theatre (the old Academy) which was ravaged by fire circa 1984. The opening production was Oh! La! La! conceived and directed by Siegfried Mynhardt.

Film

His film and TV career is equally distinguished, and includes such Afrikaans hits as Die Skerpioen (film 1946), Oom Willem en die Lord (1976), (the first Afrikaans made-for-TV film), Die Vlindervanger (film,, 1976), Dingaka, Debbie, Moeder Hanna, Die Klimop, Die Kersietuin, Troudag van Tant Ralie, Rienie, Kootjie Emmer, Daar Kom Tant Alie, Majuba: Hill of the Doves, Dr. Kalie, Danie Bosman, Tekwan, Die Houtbord, Ingqumbo Yeminyanya ("Wrath of the Ancestors"), Dans van die Flamink and The Emissary.

[TH, JH]

Awards, etc

The Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award for his contribution to SA theatre in the 1950s, the Erepenning vir Toneelkuns of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns in 1957, die Stewart Leith-trophy twice, the Order for Meritorious Service (Gold class, 1989) and various other awards as best performer.