Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: JB73 on July 10, 2003, 06:33:24 PM
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the bushman from "the gods must be crazy" movies died :( he was a funny little guy.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/935699.asp?0dm=C35HL
POLICE IN THE remote area of Tsumkwe in the Namibian part of the Kalahari where N!xau lived confirmed his recent death, but did not have any details of how or when he died. His name is a usual transliteration of his tribal language, which uses clicking noises that have no letter in English.
He had suffered from tuberculosis in the past.
The “Gods Must Be Crazy” became a worldwide hit and a top grossing foreign film after its release in 1980. Audiences swooned over his portrayal of an earnest bushman with a sheepish smile whose discovery of a Coca-Cola bottle sets off a comedy of errors.
N!xau starred in several sequels before returning to the familiarity of life as a herdsman raising cattle and vegetables in the Namibian bush.
When he was discovered by the South African director of the film, Jamie Uys, he had only had minimal exposure to modern life.
According to a 2000 story in The Namibian newspaper, he had only seen three white people in his life before being cast, and had never seen a settlement larger than the village huts of his San people.
The San are the indigenous hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa. Today they number about 100,000 and mostly live in the Kalahari.
MONEY ISSUES
Not knowing the value of paper money, he let his first wages, $300, blow away.
By the time of “The Gods Must Be Crazy II,” he had learned the value of money, demanding several hundred thousand dollars before agreeing to be recast in the film.
He said the money was needed to build a cinderblock home with electricity and a water pump for his family, according to the Internet Movie Database Web site.
Director Uys dismissed criticism that it was cruel to take N!xau out of his home environment. He said he was born to act.
“All Bushmen are natural actors. I suppose it’s because they don’t have television, and they spend their evenings telling stories and acting them out. And they don’t have any hangups or inhibitions at all,” Uys said in a 1990 interview with The Associated Press.
After the sequel, N!xau’s career took a zany twist with his appearance in several Hong Kong action films and the Chinese film, “The Gods Must be Funny.”
In one of the films, the spirit of Bruce Lee takes over N!xau’s character.
After his film career petered out, N!xau returned home to a newly built brick house. He tended his cattle and raised corn and pumpkins.
For a while he had a car. But he had to employ a driver because he had never learned to drive, The Namibian said.
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One of the best movies ever made. I am sorry to hear of his passing.
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I love those movies :(
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The gods now have company. He was a good subject for the films.
rest peacefully
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Thats too bad great films