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Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 10:15 pm

just a quick qusetion after watching the film zulu how many of the origainal cast including the zulus are still with us this present day

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 8:22 am

Michael Caine and Prince Buthelezi for starters

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 9:47 am

Add Glynn Edwards who played Corporal William Allen and probably Dickie Owen who played Addendorf (ERROR: corrected to Sheiss:oops: ). Edwards was born in 1931, so he's still fairly "young". Owen however is a bit more iffy-- I can't find any date for his demise, he was born in 1929 and somewhere knocking about is a recent (I believe) interview with him in which he sounded quite alive. That may be it for the main roles.

I appreciate that to some of our younger members and guests might think of the early Sixties as somewhere back in the hazy dawn of time (the dinosaurs had only recently gone extinct), but it was after all filmed only some 45 years ago. Sheldon Hall mentions in his book that some of the Zulu girls dancing in the opening scene were as young as sixteen, so that would only put them in their early sixties today. And although I'm awful at guessing ages, I imagine that many of the other extras, both Zulu and "British", were only in their twenties (and younger) when they were recruited for the film. So they would still be in their sixties as well.

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 10:59 am

Sawubona,

Dickie Owen played Schiess, I heard him on a radio phone-in about 18mths - 2yrs ago, living in south-east London, talking about Zulu and his Hammer movies.

John Y.

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 12:46 pm

And I see that one of the stunt fellows Robin Webb is around, on Vancouver Island. (from imdb). Said he "got killed a couple of times!".

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 1:50 pm

David Kernan who played Hitch is still alive and also 612 Williams - Peter Gill. As are both 593 and 716 Jones' and Kerry Jordan the cook.

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 3:02 pm

Ooops! Suffered some sort of incident writing "Addendorf" just then. Me bad! That's the intereview I was talking about, John. I heard it as well and it was on the posted on the Internet somewhere, but I didn't save it years ago and can't find it now.

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 7:05 pm

Also still living, in addition to those mentioned above, are Joe Powell (Windridge), Richard Davies and Denys Graham (the Joneses). I'm afraid Kerry Jordan died a number of years ago. The one principal cast member I was never able to track down is Tom Gerrard (the blond Lance Corporal), so if anyone knows where he is...!

When I was researching my book, I sent letters to several South African newspapers asking to hear from anyone involved in the film. Unfortunately, I didn't have a single response from any black cast or crew member, aside from Prince Buthelezi whom I wrote to directly. Bear in mind that life expectancy in that country, ravaged as it is by AIDS and poverty, is much lower than ours and you may realise that the chances of any Zulus from the film remaining alive and contactable are slimmer than any of us would like.

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 7:19 pm

P.S. The Robin Webb interview accessible via IMDB is interesting. He was born in July 1945 so he would have been seventeen during the filming of ZULU. No-one I spoke to (including the stunt men Joe Powell and Larery Taylor) remembered him, nor could I find any mention of him in the location crew lists. Perhaps he was involved in the Twickenham studio scenes? As I don't know what he looks like, I also wonder if he is black or white - his IMDB biography doesn't say!

Incidentally, contrary to the IMDB crew listing, Nosher Powell (who is not related to Joe or his stuntman brother Eddie) was not involved in ZULU, as he confirmed to me in a personal letter.

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:47 pm

Sheldon..From the looks of it, Webb rally didn't say much on his role in ZULU. I figured he might;ve been one of those unlucky soldeist getting killed on the roof while it was burning!

Your comment about the Zulus in the film not being struck me....I guess 45 years passing on is like a century in SA.

And and I may stir a teapot here but I'd think a remake should be a reality in our era of the digital world and blu-ray and concern of historic authenticity. Make the film for a new generation then and keep giving the history its due to the parties involved.

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:10 pm

Hi Sheldon
Tom Gerrard was present at the blue plaque unveiling for Pte William Cooper last autumn in Worthing, Sussex.

Regards, Colin Fielding

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:29 pm

Many thanks for this info re. Tom Gerrard, Colin. Do you know how I might get in touch with him? I assume someone must have invited him to the event, so if I could get hold of his contact details I'd be most grateful!

Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:59 am

Mornin' Sheldon

The event organiser was a Paul Holden of The Worthing Sentinel newspaper. Ian Knight and Lee Stevenson were there too, I don't know if they exchanged details.

Regards, Col.

Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 12:04 pm

Additionally , where did the 612 number for John Fielding/Williams come from, when it should have been 1395 ?

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:56 pm

Colin, when John Prebble was doing his research for the screenplay he came across references to both 612 and 1395 as Williams's number. He concluded that 612 was correct - I'm sure there is material in the copious literature on RD to explain why!