Hollywood on the Veld

In 1913, a secretive American millionaire who lived on the top floor of the famous Carlton Hotel had a crazy idea: to make movies in Johannesburg. Big, huge spectacles. Isidore Schlesinger – better known as “IW” – built a studio on a farm called Killarney, his own Hollywood with all the glamour, gossip and high drama fitting for a city experiencing an intoxicating golden age. From political intrigue and the clashing of massive egos to public outbursts, fiery judicial inquiries, disaster, and death played out on the movie screens and the sets. Behind this mad enterprise was a maverick, a tycoon, a recluse, a friend of the famed and the connected. This is the never-been-told-before story of the rise and fall of the strangest and most unique movie empire ever. 

Ted Botha has worked for Reuters in New York and has been published in The New York Times, Esquire, The Telegraph, Condé Nast Traveler and Outside. He has written several books, including Daisy de Melker and Apartheid in my Rucksack. 

R40 Jonathan Ball Publishers 16 Jul 10:00 ATKV Boeke-oase Ted Botha, Chris Broodryk English