SA theatre legend dies
2008-07-21 15:39
Cape Town - Well-known actor, lecturer and author Blaise Koch died on Monday morning.
Koch most recently worked as a dialogue coach for local soapie Egoli. He joined the production team in 2003 and was a "breath of fresh air", according to Burgert Muller of Franz Marx Productions.
"He worked with the director to assist in preparing the actors for their roles and performed admirably well in making the change from a theatrical background to the television environment," Muller told News24 on Monday.
Muller added that his professionalism and dedication to the task was inspiring to those around him, and his loss will leave a huge gap in the production.
Tributes started pouring in on Monday for Koch, who was born in East London in 1952. He began his acting career at the Space Theatre in 1973 before joining the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town.
Dedicated to the theatre
"He was larger than life and part of the reason that I entered this profession in the first place," Manni Manim, friend and currently Baxter CEO told News24.
"He had a wonderful, wicked sense of humour and was completely dedicated to the theatre. What stood out for me was that he truly cared about the work and his loss is a huge loss to theatre in South Africa."
Koch won a string of theatre awards, including the Gretel Mills award as well as several Fleur du Cap awards.
As a lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch, he produced numerous productions without losing touch with real issues. He was said to have remained approachable to colleagues and students.
Mervyn Williams, who built sets for many of those campus productions remembers: "He was a very good director who wanted his 'pound of flesh' from everyone who worked with him."
Versatile actor
Michael Maas of the Artscape theatre says: " He was brilliant and dedicated in whatever he did; a supremely versatile actor in English or Afrikaans, in comedy, drama or musicals. An inventive and award winning director and finally a writer of his brutally honest and entertaining memoirs In, Around, Through and Out which were published in 2002."
"His first appearance on the stage of the old Nico Malan Theatre was as a student playing a Papal guard in Hadrian VII in 1971."
Koch was diagnosed with Aids in 1998 and became a vocal advocate for people who live with HIV/Aids, delivering the inaugural UNAids address alongside special UN envoy Stephen Lewis for Namibian Coalition against Aids in June 2002.
Blaise Koch was a giant of his generation and lived his life through and because of the work he did; in his own words, very much In the Spotlight.