Franz Marx

(1944/5?*-) Actor, director, scriptwriter and film and TV producer. Enormously successful writer and producer of South African soap operas, stage and film actor and film and television director. Trained at the University of Stellenbosch and the University of Potchefstroom, where he also taught acting for a while. In 1965 he joined PACT as a full-time actor. Among the memorable roles for which he is remembered over the years are the leads in Moliére’s Wie de drommel is Pasquale?, Tartuffe (1986) and Die Vrek (“the Misanthrope”), Chris Barnard’s Pa Maak vir my ‘n Vlieër Pa [“Father, Make me a Kite”], Gogol’s Dagboek van ‘n Waansinnige (“Diary of a Madman”), Anouilh’s Becket, **. He loves the stage and after a break of more than a decade, he made a return to acting for Deon Opperman’s Magspel in 2000. In 1967 he began directing as well with Die Jakkalsstreke van Scapino (“The *** of Scapino”). He starred in François Swart’s production of P.G. du Plessis’ ‘n Seder Val in Waterkloof together with Annette Engelbrecht, Don Lamprecht, Johan Malherbe and Wilna Snyman which was a huge success for PACT in 1975. He won best Afikaans actor at the DALRO Awards for his role in Saterdag, Sondag, Maandag. In 1968 he became the first full-time film actor in the country in films like Jy is my liefling (“You are my love”) and Danie Bosman and in 1973 he began directing. His first film was Seuns van die Wolke (“Sons of the Clouds”) while he wrote the scripts for Freddie’s in Love and Ma Skryf Matriek (“Mother Writes Matric”). He eventually made 18 films of varying critical and financial success. In 1980* he moved to television, writing more than 13 television series, 7 single dramas and two mini series between 1980 and 2000. He made his debut with the hugely popular family series Skooldae (“School Days”), followed by Familiedae (“Family Days”) and Kampus (“Campus”). He now moved to adapt the soap-opera format for South African audiences with the record-breaking Agter Elke Man (“Behind Each Man”) which dominated TV for 4 years (1985-1988), followed by the even more formidable success of the multilingual Egoli – Plek van Goud (“Egoli – Place of Gold”), which has been running for more than 11 years and is in its 12th year of production since 1992.

Sources

Tucker, 1997

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