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)
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