The death of ‘soul of South African storytelling’ sparks grief and anger

The death of a much-loved star is normally followed by an outpouring of grief, but in South Africa last week’s loss of 75-year-old actress Nandi Nyembe also came with an outpouring of anger.

People were distressed that in the last months of her life an obviously sick woman was reduced to appearing on videos appealing for financial help.

Sitting in a wheelchair, with thin, grey hair, wearing a loose T-shirt and fleece pyjama trousers, she said she did not like people feeling pity for her, but she needed money to cover the basics. Her biggest plea was for more work so she could support herself.

This was a far cry from her more famous screen appearances.

As the lead in some major television series over recent decades, her face was beamed into the homes of South Africans and she became a familiar weekly presence.

Respectfully known as mam’Nandi, her passing, for some, felt like losing a close relative.

A tribute jointly released by her family and the government hailed her as the “very soul of South African storytelling”.

She was “far more than an actress” but also a teacher and guide who “broke barriers” and “inspired young actors in villages and townships to dream beyond their circumstances”.

Given that status, the way she appeared late in life was all the more shocking.

Her death, after a long illness, has reignited the debate about the lack of support available to South African artists who are unable to work and has shone a spotlight on the struggle many face behind the scenes.

After an initial appearance fee, actors in South Africa do not receive any royalties for subsequent broadcasts of their work.

They are employed as freelancers and as a result they get none of the possible benefits – such as a pension and health coverage – which may be available to regular employees.

This means that “every single actor who is active in this country right now is on an inevitable path to where mam’Nandi was,” Jack Devnarain, South African Guild of Actors (Saga) chairperson, told the BBC.

He said it had been painful to witness Nyembe’s struggles in those final videos, knowing that “this was not going to end well”.

“Because there is no amount of charity in the world that’s going to fix the structural problems within the creative sector.”

An actor himself, Devnarain fondly remembered Nyembe’s glory years, saying how “welcoming and warm” she had been towards him as a young artist.

“In mam’Nandi’s presence, you knew you were in the presence of performance royalty.”

Nyembe was born in 1950 in Kliptown, the oldest part of Soweto – the black township just outside Johannesburg. Her mother was an actress and tap dancer and her father was a boxer, according to the online publication Actor Spaces.

Her family moved around a lot during her childhood and as a result she grew up with “different, diverse people”, she is quoted as saying.

Her acting career began in the 1970s at the height of the apartheid era, when the state legally enforced racial segregation.

With limited opportunities for black people, Nyembe was mostly cast in the role of a maid whenever she auditioned. She told South African magazine Bona in 2017: “Inequality and oppression angered me and I started taking part in protest theatre.”

Despite this typecasting, she would later go on to make her mark, first in theatre and then in various TV shows and films by the 1990s.

Among the television roles she was best known for was the recurring character of an HIV-positive nurse in the hospital drama Soul City. It ran from 1994 – the year of South Africa’s first democratic election and at a time when people struggled to speak about HIV/Aids, which was rapidly becoming a national crisis.

In another popular series, Yizo Yizo, she played a nurturing mother in a show that captured the raw realities of life in a South African township.

On the big screen, she captivated audiences with her role as a sangoma, or traditional healer, in the 2004 Oscar-nominated South African film Yesterday.

“She was extremely passionate about her work… it’s what she lived for outside of her family,” her grandson, Jabulani Nyembe, said.

She “was always looking to better her craft” and “always wanted to do better”, but at the same time “her career was also [about] building other actors and actresses through her work”.

Beyond acting, he remembers her as someone always willing to help others within her community and as “the pillar of the family” and their “backbone”.

He touched on the viral video, admitting that Nyembe had faced challenges towards the end of her life, before adding that the family helped her as much as it could.

The actor’s guild Saga has been at the forefront of pushing for legal changes to prevent similar situations.

Two bills were introduced to parliament in 2017 aimed at giving actors “the right to earn royalties for the first time in South African history”, according to Devnarain.

“That is why they are critical for the survival of the sector,” he said.

After years of back-and-forth, they finally ended up on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s desk for his signature in 2024.

But he has since referred both bills to the Constitutional Court, concerned that they could affect elements enshrined in the constitution by placing retrospective restrictions on copyright.

This has left actors stuck in limbo.

“Any actor who is on film or television right now must understand that for as long as you keep working, you are going to end up outliving your money,” Devnarain said.

“Government has failed the entire sector and they have failed mam’Nandi.”

At a memorial service in Johannesburg on Thursday actress Lerato Mvelase also blasted the government for offering little more than a “lullaby” to actors.

“How long must we hear the same speeches [at memorial services]? How long must we have the same engagements about the need for policy structures that are going to protect us as actors?” she asked.

But Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie, who rarely shies away from a fight, hit back at critics, saying that he had personally responded to Nyembe’s plight when she was alive and the government has helped the family and is paying for Saturday’s funeral.

“We work day and night to change the plight of creatives, soon they would have funeral cover, hospital care and policy payout for their children. We truly care and we are tasked with changing their lives,” he wrote on Facebook.

Any changes now, of course, are too late for Nyembe.

At the memorial, renowned filmmaker Angus Gibson touched on this, describing how she would ask him for work during difficult times.

“As great an actor as she was, it didn’t protect her from a tough world,” he said.