Feeling the African beat
On a lighter note there’s the day he got arrested with Dolly Rathebe on a mine dump.
After looking for a Johannesburg backdrop that would resemble a beach, the bikini-clad bombshell posed for him on top of a dump.
After finishing the shoot they were accosted by four cops accusing them of contravening the notorious Immorality Act.
“Wat doen jy hier, seuntjie? (What are you doing here, boykie?)” a sergeant demanded.
He then turned to Rathebe: “Ek wil jou broek sien! (I want to see your panties.)”
After lifting her dress to show that she was in fact, wearing panties, Rathebe was thrown in the back of a pick-up van. Schadeberg was pushed into a police car.
At the police station a cop lectured him: “We don’t mix with these people. You should know, as a German, they are different.”
Jim Bailey, Drum’s financier and proprietor after Crisp ran into difficulties, was pathologically loathe to hand out money, despite being one of the wealthiest men on the continent. Bailey was the son of Randlord Sir Abe Bailey and Lady Mary Bailey.
He’d leave his poorly paid subordinates to pick up the tab for a night’s binge drinking with township Mafia bosses.
Editor Anthony Sampson was a Jeykll and Hyde character – and his Mr Hyde side could be horribly creepy (read the book).
The Drum world was full of characters who still loom large today. Driving with the magazine’s music editor Todd Matshikiza was a terrifying experience, writes Schadeberg, because Matshikiza was so short he almost disappeared behind the wheel of his Morris Minor.
The two of them hung out with Kippie Moeketsi in an underworld where “gangsters danced with guns and knives and thought gambling, shooting and stabbing were normal”.
Abnormal times that produced both the best and the worst. Definitely worth a read.
Schadeberg left South Africa in 1964 to work and teach abroad. He returned in 1985 and stayed for another 22 years.
His body of work spans more than 70 years and incorporates a collection of some 200 000 negatives – a wealth of timeless and iconic images, many of which have been widely exhibited. — With additional editing by Dawn Barkhuizen
Jürgen Schadeberg’s The Way I See It (Picador Africa) retails at R310 and is available at good bookstores nationwide or online