Bertha egnos biography

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Bertha Egnos (1 January 1913 – 2 July 2003) was a South African musician, director, and composer in musical theatre, best known as the co-creator and director.
Bertha Egnos was a South African musician, director, and composer in musical theatre, best known as the co-creator and director of Ipi Tombi.

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Bertha Egnos

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Bertha Egnos

Bertha Egnos (1913-2003) was a dramatist, musician, composer, piano teacher, and entrepreneur.

Biography

Born on 1 January in Johannesburg, 1912, she was a child prodigy who could do anything on a piano. She left school at the age of 12-13 and started her own jazz group. In 1917 she contracted the Spanish flue, and would have trouble with her lungs for the rest of her life.

She taught piano for a long time.

She did some recordings when she was 17, then left South Africa for London in 1934, where she worked for the BBC, performed in London as a jazz pianist (including performances at the London Palladium Theatre), studied with jazz pianist Reginald Forsyth.

In the 1930s, during the Second World War, she returned to South Africa where she led the drum majorettes of the SAWAS Civic Service Unit Bugle Band.

In the 1950s and 1960s she was a regular performer at the Dorkay House venue in downtown Johannesburg

She married Frank Lakier, the owner of the Odin Cinema in Sophiatown, in 1938. They had two daughters, the lyricist Gail Lakier and Lucille Lakier. She s

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Eureka! tribute to Bertha Egnos

Ah, the joy of a blog! My post on the movie Dingaka has provided more comments and reactions than I initially thought. Thus I was contacted by Lucille Lakier Smith, a lady who claimed to be the daughter of Bertha Egnos, the composer of Dingaka’s original soundtrack. Her mother, together with sister Gail Lakier, created South Africa’s biggest musical hit so far, ‘Ipi ‘N’ Tombi’.

My interest was immediately aroused so I decided to look up the lady in Johannesburg for an interview about her mother and her long career. South African born Lucille Lakier Smith carries on her mom’s legacy as head of Songé Music Promotions Ltd. and I want to thank her for granting me the interview and her invaluable help with providing the images from her personal archive.

interview with Lucille Lakier Smith, the daughter of the late Bertha Egnos (1912-2003) –Johannesburg 13th January 2013

“ My mother was born in 1912 in Johannesburg, she must have been 28 when she married my father Frank Lakier in 1938. Since my parents were divorced I don’t know much ab