South Africans on Tuesday noted Charlize Theron’s latest success — but some couldn’t resist raking up the dark past of the former model who left the country a traumatised teenager.
”South Africa’s golden girl”, ”Boeremeisie makes good” and ”Monster’s triumph” were among the headlines hailing her Golden Globe as best actress in the film Monster — an award widely seen as a stepping stone to an Oscar, and rightfully so: on Tuesday Theron was nominated for an Academy Award for best leading actress.
One radio host devoted much of her talk show to analysing Theron’s reaction at winning the award.
”This is crazy. I’m from a farm in South Africa. This is insane,” she yelped at the awards ceremony in Beverly Hills when at the start of her acceptance speech.
The 28-year-old blonde former model was born in Benoni on Johannesburg’s East Rand. She made her international debut as a model after winning the local New Model Today competition in the early 1990s before settling in Los Angeles to pursue a film career.
Theron chose not to disclose that her mother shot and killed her father when he tried to attack the two in a drunken rage, the Johannesburg Star newspaper reminded its readers.
It was only fairly recently that she admitted her version — that she had lost her father in a car accident — was not the truth.
In a syndicated column headlined ”I saw her golden globes”, former South African Playboy editor Jeremy Gordin meanwhile recalled his encounter with the actress.
In 1994, she and her mother, Gerda, walked into his office to present her portfolio with a view to securing a spot as the magazine’s first Playmate.
Gordin was about to break the news that the publisher had rejected her as ”clearly not well-endowed enough” when ”she whipped off her T-shirt, under which she wore no bra”.
”Theron got the job with immediate effect,” he wrote.
The determined young model was clearly destined for other things. — Sapa-DPA