Face Value (book)

Last updated

Face Value
Janifacevalue.jpg
Cover of Face Value
Author Jani Allan
Cover artistRoger Ingarfield
Country South Africa
LanguageEnglish
Genre Journalism/Photography
PublisherLongstreet
Publication date
1983
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages119
ISBN 978-0-620-07013-3
OCLC 53125911
Followed byJani Confidential 

Face Value is a 1983 anthology of collected journalism by South African journalist Jani Allan. The book is compiled from selections of Allan's successful [1] gossip and popular culture column Just Jani that appeared in the Sunday Times . She was voted "the most admired person in South Africa." in a Gallup poll commissioned by the newspaper. [2] The book was published by Longstreet publishers in Cape Town and released in South Africa in 1983. [3]

Contents

Synopsis

The book is a selection of interviews and photographs of public figures from various fields such as entertainment, sport, business, art and politics. Allan also contributed a column-style introduction to each chapter. Andrzej Sawa provided the photographs of the interviewees. [3] [4]

Five of the interviewees (Sol Kerzner, Danie Craven, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Walter Battiss and Taubie Kushlick) were featured in the They shaped our century survey, a top 100 list published about which people had the greatest influence on South Africa during the twentieth century. Sunday Times editor, Tertius Myburgh wrote a foreword for the collection.

Author's note

"I do not think that for one moment that in a brief interview I can write an accurate-every-time character-revealing piece. But my aim has always been to convey as honestly as I can my first impressions on Face Value, with no 'Ums', 'Ers' or retakes." [3]

Reception

The book received favourable reviews; [3]

"She soon developed a highly individual style and the Jani Allan column, one of the most successful features in Africa's biggest newspaper, followed. She's become a formidable journalist...There's a touch of Tom Wolfe's 'new journalism' about her writing, but it is never contrived. In her choice of subjects she's attracted by what she calls 'the boquet of money' and she's good on those ubiquitous creatures of our time, the 'celebrities', whom she is able to send up without the bitchiness which tends to put me off some lady writers of the adversary school of journalism. When she's touched by something - an individual, a cause, or some little act of valour - her writing reflects immense warmth and humanity." Tertius Myburgh, Editor of the Sunday Times

"Your piece on me acted like a bicycle pump and I mooned around for ages, smiling foolishly and cannoning off the wallls. [sic]" Frank Muir

"The only girl who ever knocked me out" Mike Weaver

"Guy Fawkes couldn't brighten up Sunday better." Graham Bell

"She is not destructive - but she does have a particular facility for puncturing pomposity" Joe Sutton

Contents

THE PERPETUAL SPECTACLES 9

BUSINESS MORE THAN USUAL 21

NATIONAL MONUMENTS 37

PRETTY BOYS ALL IN A ROW 57

FUNNY YOU SHOULD SAY THAT ... 67

SPORTING CHANCERS 79

OLD MASTERS, YOUNG IDEAS 89

MIXED METAPHORS 101

Dictionary

Her Just Jani column has been referenced extensively by South African English dictionaries because of Allan's popular use of terms such as jorl, smaak and larney . [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamie Uys</span> South African film director

Jacobus Johannes Uys, better known as Jamie Uys, was a South African film director, best known for directing the 1980 comedy film The Gods Must Be Crazy and its 1989 sequel The Gods Must Be Crazy II. Uys also directed the 1974 documentary film Animals Are Beautiful People.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pieter-Dirk Uys</span> South African comedian (born 1945)

Pieter-Dirk Uys is a South African performer, author, satirist, and social activist. One of his best known roles is as Evita Bezuidenhout, an Afrikaner socialite.

Anneline Kriel is a South African actress, model and beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss South Africa 1974 and was later crowned Miss World 1974. She is the second of three South African women to hold the Miss World title after Penelope Coelen in 1958 and before Rolene Strauss in 2014. In South Africa she achieved "icon" status where she became known as a "Princess Diana" figure and also appeared in several local film and television projects such as Kill and Kill Again in 1981. She was also in a high-profile marriage (1980-1985) with the late South African hotelier, Sol Kerzner.

Walter Whall Battiss was a South African artist, also known as the creator of the "Fook Island" concept.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurika Rauch</span> Musical artist

Laurika Rauch, is a South African singer who performs in both Afrikaans and English. She had a hit single in 1979 with Kinders van die Wind, written by Koos du Plessis. The song featured prominently in the Afrikaans television series "Phoenix & Kie" in the late seventies.

The Sunday Times is South Africa's biggest Sunday newspaper. Established in 1906, the Sunday Times is distributed all over South Africa and in neighbouring countries such as Lesotho, Botswana, and Eswatini.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jani Allan</span> South African journalist, columnist, writer and broadcaster (1952–2023)

Jani Allan was a South African journalist, columnist, writer, broadcaster, and a media celebrity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Kirby (satirist)</span>

Robert Kirby was a famous South African satirist, playwright, comedian, novelist, columnist and musician who died in 2007 following complications from a heart operation, four months prior.

Patrick Beattie Mynhardt was a well-known South African film and theatre actor. He appeared in over 150 stage plays in South Africa and England, 100 local and international films, TV plays and serials as well as an opera. He died in London, where he was performing in his one-man show Boy from Bethulie at the Jermyn Street Theatre in the West End.

Independent Online, popularly known as IOL, is a partially Chinese state-owned news website based in South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zweli Mkhize</span> South African doctor and politician

Zwelini Lawrence Mkhize is a South African medical doctor and politician who served as the Minister of Health from May 2019 until his resignation on 5 August 2021. He previously served as the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs from 2018 to 2019. Before that, he was the fifth Premier of KwaZulu-Natal from 2009 to 2013.

Red Jacket is a 1998 documentary film about the life of the world's best-selling artist, Vladimir Tretchikoff. The film was produced by Technitronics and televised by the SABC.

Andrzej Sawa is a Polish-South African photographer.

Sonja Herholdt is a South African singer-songwriter and Afrikaner actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siegfried Mynhardt</span> South African actor

Siegfried Mynhardt was a South African actor.

Katrina is a 1969 South African drama film directed by Jans Rautenbach and starring Katinka Heyns, Jill Kirkland and Don Leonard. Based on a play called Try for White by D Warner, the film depicts the lives of a family of a Coloured South Africans, who in the apartheid system are considered neither white nor black, in which Katrina, the daughter, attempts to appear white, before her secret is exposed. The screenplay was written by Emil Nofal.

<i>Jani Confidential</i>

Jani Confidential is a memoir by the late South African columnist Jani Allan, once the most famous media figure in the country as a columnist for the country's mass-circulation Sunday Times. Allan charts her rise in South African journalism against the backdrop of excess and decadence of the country's white elites. Allan's life unravels when an interview with the late Eugene Terre'Blanche threatens to derail her glittering career. Her memoir became a critical success, lauded by publications such as the Daily Maverick, Mail & Guardian and Noseweek. Commercially Jani Confidential also performed well, becoming a Sunday Times top five best-seller. The memoir was published by Jacana Media on 16 March 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Matisonn</span> South African political journalist and author

John Matisonn is a South African political journalist and author. He was one of the founding councillors of South Africa's Independent Broadcasting Authority and from 1986 to 1991 was the South Africa correspondent for National Public Radio in the United States.

Stan Katz is a South African broadcaster, best known as the presenter of Radio 702's highly rated Morning Zoo show. Katz would later become the CEO of Primedia Broadcasting.

<i>Die Rebellie van Lafras Verwey</i> 1965 South African drama film

Die Rebellie van Lafras Verwey, is a 2017 South African biographical drama film directed by Simon Barnard and co-produced by Katinka Heyns and Genevieve Hofmeyr for Sonneblom Films and Moonlighting Films. The film stars Tobie Cronje in the lead role along with Chantell Phillipus, Neels van Jaarsveld and Cobus Visser in supportive roles.

References

  1. "They Used to Hog the Headlines". The Sunday Times. South Africa. 11 June 2007.[ permanent dead link ]
  2. Abstracts Weekly Mail. 1992
  3. 1 2 3 4 Allan, Jani (1980s). Face Value. Longstreet.
  4. Andrezej Sawa Archived 22 June 2008 at the Wayback Machine Nikon Professional Services.
  5. Louis Bruke Film Database-CITWF
  6. Benny Goldberg: Owner of world’s largest liquor supermarket [ permanent dead link ] Sunday Times. 26 August 2007
  7. Mr Anthony "Tony" FACTOR [ permanent dead link ] News24-Who's Who
  8. Joe Stewardson IMDB
  9. Richard LORING Archived 28 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine News24-Who's Who
  10. Karl Kikillus Discogs
  11. Mr Tobie CRONJE News24-Who's Who
  12. Mrs Katinka HEYNS [ permanent dead link ] News24-Who's Who
  13. Gordon Vorster Art Net
  14. Mr Alvon COLLISON Archived 29 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine News24-Who's Who
  15. CAPE WINE MASTERS AWARDS DINNER AT MEERENDAL Archived 13 June 2008 at the Wayback Machine 6 May 2006
  16. Inventory: The Carol Charlewood Collection 1984 to 1997 University of the Witwatersrand
  17. Branford, Jean (1987). A Dictionary of South African English. Oxford University Press.