Page 26 - Boardwalk Issue 2_2023

BOOK REVIEWS

Harry Oppenheimer

DIAMONDS, GOLD AND DYNASTY

By Michael Cardo

Harry Oppenheimer, the international
gold-and-diamond magnate, presided
over the corporate dynasty of Anglo
American and De Beers for more than
25 years. Famed for his wealth and his
companies’ economic power, he strad-
dles the history of 20th-century South
Africa like a colossus. Yet, two decades
after his death, the Oppenheimer em-
pire is no more. As the political opposi-
tion’s key financial backer, the founder
(along with Anton Rupert) of the Urban
Foundation after the Soweto uprising
in 1976, and a ubiquitous philanthro-
pist, Oppenheimer helped propel the
process of reform.

Nevertheless, in some quarters he is and Oppenheimer’s complicity with
demonised as the archetype of ‘white the oppressive racial order of the past.
monopoly capital’ and scapegoated, Cardo brings to life the places, people,
along with Nelson Mandela, for the events and relationships that shaped
country’s disappointing democratic div- Harry Oppenheimer’s long and rich
idends. In the first, full-scale biography career at the intersection of business
of Oppenheimer, based on unrestricted and politics. From the diamond fields
access to his subject’s private papers of Kimberley, where Harry’s father, I am Ella
and extensive interviews with family Ernest Oppenheimer, arrived to seek
members and close associates, Michael his fortune, through the heir’s long
Cardo eschews both the corporate hype apprenticeship, to his emergence on
and the political propaganda to pro- the world stage as a magnate and By Joan Jowell
duce a vivid, fully rounded portrait. ‘monarch’ in his own right, Cardo Ella Blumenthal’s story of surviv-
traces the evolution of a dynasty. ing the Holocaust and building
He tackles thorny questions of legacy Price: R360.00 a new life in South Africa could

The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece easily be mistaken for fiction. From
the ashes of the Warsaw Ghetto
By Tom Hanks uprising to the fires of Majdanek,
Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz; from
the abandon of post-war Poland
A wildly ambitious story of the making to the refuge of Paris, Palestine
of a colossal, star-studded, multimillion- and getting married and moving to
dollar superhero action film, and the Johannesburg and eventually Cape
humble comic book that inspired it all. Town; from stateless refugee to dis-
Spanning 80 years and culminating placed immigrant, Ella’s 101 years
in the opening of the film, we meet a of life have been nothing short of
colourful cast of characters including herculean.
a troubled soldier returning from Together with her niece Roma
war, a young boy with an artistic gift, Rothstein, five years her junior, Ella
an inspired and eccentric director, survived three concentration camps
a pompous film star on the rise, a before being liberated by the Brit-
tireless production assistant and ish Army in 1945. They made their
countless film crew members that way across Europe to join their
together create Hollywood magic. last surviving family member in

Funny, touching, and wonderfully DPL Palestine where Ella met the South
thought-provoking, the book African man she would marry after
offers an insider’s take on the just thirteen days. She followed
momentous efforts it takes to Isaac Blumenthal to the tip of Africa
make a film. At once a reflection where they settled in Brakpan,
on America’s past and present, outside Johannesburg where Ella
on the world of show business and her husband built a business
and the real world we all live in. and raised their four children.
Price: R390.00 Price: R330.00

24
Boardwalk Meander Estate Issue 2 · 2023