264pp., illus., maps, paperback, Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg, 2025
ISBN: 9781776194681
Ted Botha on the rise and fall of American millionaire Isidore Schlesinger's ambition to create a movie empire in Johannesburg.
In 1914 Schlesinger (1871-1949) opened a chain of theatres and cinemas. He formed the first South African film production company, African Film Productions, at the studio he built on a farm called Killarney and made the first regular South African newsreels and the earliest full-length films.
Journalist and author Ted Botha has worked for Reuters in New York and has been published in The New York Times, Esquire, The Telegraph, Condé Nast Traveler and Outside. His books include Daisy de Melker, hiding among killers in the City of Gold; Apartheid in my Rucksack, and the forensic thriller The Girl with the Crooked Nose.