Soapie star rises above nightmare marriage episode
‘Generations’ actress suffered betrayal and bankruptcy
AT the height of her career, actress Pamela Nomvete lived a charmed life of fame and champagne lunches.
She earned big money as the mean-spirited Ntsiki Lukhele in the long-running soapie Generations . She was a star, mobbed by fans. But then the work dried up and she became entangled in an unhappy marriage, supporting her abusive husband’s lavish lifestyle.
Seven years ago, her world came crashing down and she found herself living in her car, which she parked at a petrol station close to the doublestorey mansion where she once lived.
“Gone were the champagne lunches, designer clothes and visits to the top hairdressers,” writes Nomvete, 51, in her memoir, Dancing to the Beat of the Drum: In Search of My Spiritual Home, which is due to be published in South Africa later this year.
She was hiding from family and friends and had fallen into debt. In desperation, Nomvete started selling her entire wardrobe, including the designer items. She traded a prized photograph of herself with Nelson Mandela for a favour and sold her bed for R100.
“I was centre stage and destitute,” she writes in her book, which has been adapted for the stage as Ngiyadansa. The show was recently presented at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre.
Directed by Nomvete, the play features poet Lebo Mashile and is choreographed by Mbulelo Jonas and Mbulelo Ndabeni.
Until now, the full extent of Nomvete’s financial woes has never
He would often talk of young women who were ‘oh-so-well put together’
been made public.
Down on her luck in 2007, she bagged the starring role in a short television film, Crossroads , which earned her enough money to pay her way to London. There she got work in theatre and television, including a role in the hugely successful soapie Coronation Street.
She had vowed never to come back to South Africa because of her “failed marriage, failed career and total failure in my relationship with my homeland”, she writes in her book.
But last month she returned after seven years in the UK, partly to direct Ngiyadansa. “At first I directed the play from London. Then, four weeks ago, I decided I needed to be here,” she said in an exclusive interview this week.
Now Nomvete is here to stay, and is house hunting.
Born in exile in Ethiopia after her activist parents left South Africa during apartheid, she is the youngest of four children. Over the years, her family spent time in the US and Zambia. She went to school in London before graduating at the Welsh College of Music and Drama.
“I was more a theatre actress in London at the beginning of my career. I had a cameo role in a television series, London’s Burning, in 1989 and another in East Enders in 1991, in which I played Yvonne.”
After moving to South Africa in 1994, Nomvete landed the role in Generations . This led to a relationship with Sello Maake kaNcube, then her co-star.
“My popularity as Ntsiki was increasing,” she writes. “It was even becoming a little uncomfortable living in a complex. People randomly started knocking on my door. When I opened, they would shove their kids in my face.”
There was an unnamed “forbidden lover” after her relationship with kaNcube ended and then she met Collin Marimbe, a Zimbabwean, who was seven years her junior.
During their 11-year relationship, Marimbe, who has since died, abused her verbally and emotionally, writes Nomvete. He would dictate what clothes she wore and even demanded that she allow him to bring other women into their bed.
“He would often talk of young women who didn’t have two cents to rub together, but were ‘ oh-so-well put together’,” she writes.
They married in August 2002, despite the fact that Marimbe had never been faithful to her. After the wedding, he brought other women home as his “second wives”.
“He wanted me out of the way but he needed me,” says Nomvete in her book. Being photographed alongside her made him feel like a Hollywood star, she adds.
She filed for divorce in 2007, but Marimbe refused to sign the papers. He kicked her out of their home and, because she was struggling to get roles, she could not afford a place of her own.
Luckily for Nomvete, those days are long gone. She is planning a countrywide tour of Ngiyadansa.