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Daily Maverick
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Farewell to broadcaster André Walters, a voice that shaped a nation's conscience on the natural world
The journalist, actor and conservationist died in Johannesburg this month after nearly 70 years in news media. He was 85. In the mid-1980s, across South Africa, children and adults gathered in lounges in anticipation. The country's fledgling television channel, SABC TV, had begun airing 50/50, a weekly environmental show unlike anything they had seen. Glued to flickering screens, they watched lions stalk silently through dry grasslands, rivers wind through forgotten forests, birds arc across wild horizons and tiny insects carrying out startling displays. The doors to myriad secret worlds in nature had suddenly found their keys. But it wasn't just the images that held them. It was the voice – a deep, deliberate baritone that seemed to care about every creature it described. For many, that was the moment something awakened. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, would later become rangers, guides, researchers or wildlife vets, tracing their first spark of wonder to a man named André Walters, who made the natural world feel close, vivid and sacred. For generations of South Africans, 50/50 was more than a television show; it was the flagstaff of care around which a growing movement for wildlife and wild places was built. It stood, week after week, for something enduring and vital: a love of the natural world, a belief that it should be protected and the idea that journalism could be a form of custodianship. According to the founding co-producer Danie van der Walt, 'We saw that using numbers as programme names worked particularly well. So, we later decided on 50/50 – the balance between people and the environment, and equally weighted opinions.' Defiance for nature André Walters died on 10 June 2025 in Johannesburg at the age of 85, having spent nearly 70 years in service of storytelling, truth and nature. He was the co-anchor of 50/50 from its very first episode in January 1984 until 1996, and remained a freelance field presenter and producer until 2010. Other faces who co-anchored over time were Iza Trengove, Sybil Coetzee and Liz Dick. Under his baritone narration, the show became the world's first – and only – weekly hourlong environmental TV programme that aired year-round for nearly three decades. It began, characteristically, with defiance against apartheid-era information control, military euphemisms and ecological neglect. 'To hell with Pik Botha,' founding producers Van der Walt and Attie Gerber declared as they wrestled with censors and Cabinet ministers to get their new programme greenlit. What the team created, instead, was game-changing. With André's voice guiding the nation, 50/50 made space for ecosystems, species, indigenous knowledge and human-nature relationships on primetime TV. He was more than its face; he was its spirit. Early beginnings From the very beginning, André's life was shaped by resilience. Born on 14 April 1940 in Queenstown, Eastern Cape, he overcame a childhood stutter and the trauma of a turbulent, abusive father who could nevertheless dance, play piano and tap dance. At age 21, André took money from his intoxicated father's pocket to buy train tickets for his mother and sister, fleeing years of violence to forge a new life of purpose and creativity. 'Determination was his renewable resource,' said his daughter, journalist Tiara Walters. 'That resource never ran out. By 19, at Stellenbosch University, he lived on potatoes and put his sister through business college.' André was anchoring radio shows. He would go on to become a defining voice of South African broadcasting; a lead actor on stage and in film; the anchor of the country's first television current affairs show (Kamera Een, 1976); and a radio pioneer who helped launch GoodHope FM, East Coast Radio and Highveld Stereo. He was GoodHope FM's first early morning announcer. In the late 1990s, he launched Radio Safari, the world's first conservation radio station. His career spanned seafaring disasters, diamond dives, Jim Reeves interviews and environmental investigations. He covered the 1966 SS SA Seafarer shipwreck at Green Point, helped build documentary programming at a time when factual TV was barely a category, and later in life dived into investigative exposés on acid mine drainage and illegal mining at World Heritage Sites. As a veteran actor, he played roles in South African soaps like Egoli and 7de Laan. The stories mattered because they mattered to the teller. Riaan Cruywagen, South Africa's longest-running news anchor, remembered André as 'a consummate broadcaster' who treated factual accuracy as sacred. 'His charming personality endeared him to friends and colleagues. I will never cease in my admiration of André Walters, a true broadcasting legend,' he said. Together with André, they were part of the senior team that launched South African television on 5 January 1976. He was also 'One-Take André', as 50/50 executive producer Van der Walt recalled. Whether parachuting into a conservation controversy or bursting from Sodwana Bay with a soggy, impromptu link to camera – 'Roll camera! I feel a link coming!' – Walters made it look effortless. 'What will stay with me is how quickly André could sum up the situation and grasp what to convey on camera. It was always astonishing how many people recognised him on the street. He felt like a friend,' said Van der Walt. André broke his leg while shooting Meisie van Suidwes, a 1980s television series featuring, among others, the actor Arnold Vosloo. He shot his remaining scenes, returned to South Africa from Namibia, had another fall – and broke his arm. Director Elma Potgieter said he turned up in her studio in a wheelchair, covered in plaster, but finished his scenes for the day as the lead voice for the dubbed German detective series Derrick. Potgieter told Daily Maverick that the studio's acoustics were less than ideal, so she was forced to manoeuvre the voice artist around the room to achieve the best tonal qualities. For all his stage presence, André was a man of quiet habits and many curiosities. He was a sailor, hiker, diver, cartoonist, bonsai-pruner and model-airplane pilot. He sketched faces both real and imagined. He painted geishas, birds and fractured lovers. He spoke to children and the elderly with equal ease. In the words of wildlife photographer Greg du Toit, 'Great humans are like that. They take time to reach the common man.' At André's retirement home, Du Toit brought him a birdbath. 'He had a twinkle in his eye, invited me in and wanted to hear all about me.' He taught his children, Tiara and André Anthony, to see with all their senses. 'In nature, green was never just green. Blue was never blue,' Tiara recalled. 'He showed us to be with the spirits of the forest, the river, the bush. He was tone-deaf and made us laugh with off-key tunes. But he spoke in a voice that made him famous.' Even in his final days, he was writing columns for Leadership magazine. He received his last assignment days before he died. 'André was like a father to me to the very end,' said JJ Tabane, a political commentator and the magazine's editor. His stories lived on in a new generation – 50/50 alumni like Bonné de Bod and younger filmmakers grew up watching him on Sunday nights. 'The show inspired me to live out my love of nature,' she said, recalling the text she had received about her rhino-poaching documentary. 'He sent me a message after STROOP – 'Well done, Bonné, for actually standing up and doing something.' I'll never forget it.' Green Scorpions members recall his early 50/50 episodes as formative. 'He is a legend in South African conservation,' said a former director, Div de Villiers. The word most often used in the days after his passing? 'Mensch,' said his daughter. 'He exuded enough charisma and warmth to solve South Africa's energy problems. He was a free university and baobab to many.' André Walters was married twice: first to Adèle, a fellow journalist and mother of his children, whom he met while covering the moon landing in 1969; and later, for three decades, to Vici – 'the love of his life' who died of cancer in 2019. They built a bushveld guesthouse, Lala Lodge, at Delta Park, Johannesburg. It became a haven for thinkers, dreamers and even a San guest, who once sat in their garden, speaking for hours to the birds. Guests included Edward de Bono and Credo Mutwa, but the heart of the lodge was the couple's hospitality – the warmth beneath the theatrical flair. He gave South Africans permission to care, to be moved by the fate of a vulture or the loss of a tree. In an age of indifference, he dared to say: look closer, feel more, act now. It is fitting that one of his later acts as a field journalist was to tumble down a slope while filming at the Sterkfontein World Heritage Site – nearly 70 years old, he held his camera aloft as he rolled, preserving the footage. 'We made the deadline,' Tiara remembered. Of course they did. He always did. In a nation that has too often failed its wild creatures and sacred places, André Walters stood firm – voice unwavering, camera steady, conscience alive.
The South African
30-05-2025
- Sport
- The South African
Broos explains why he likes Orlando Pirates star Selepe so much
Hugo Broos has provided some enlightening reasons as to why he picked Orlando Pirates youngster Simphiwe Selepe in his Bafana squad. 'I've always said age doesn't matter,' said Broos while discussing 20-year-old Orlando Pirates star Simphiwe Selepe on SABC TV . 'Quality, talent and when I see the last three, four games that Selepe played, I have to give him a chance. Again, maybe it will be too soon, but we can only see when we put him in the team and when he's playing a game. 'So again, the opportunity is very good to do it, and the age, okay, what's the problem with the age? He has the talent, it's up to him. 'What I like about Selepe, first of all, he is a good midfielder and he is good at passing. He scored a goal, so he's not only defensive, but he can also help the team offensively, and he's young.' Orlando Pirates fans are expectant on Soweto Derby Day. Image: BackpagePix Bafana boss Hugo Broos has again excluded Orlando Pirates duo Tshegofatso Mabasa and Evidence Makgopa from his squad. The pair made a preliminary group of 42 but haven't made the final 23. Instead, Broos has opted for an array of wide attackers and a solitary central striker, Richards Bay man Yanela Mbuthuma. Couldn't South Africa have benefited from having another traditional number 9 in this 23-man group? It begs the question: Does Broos have a vendetta against Mabasa Makgopa? The latter was a key component for Bafana at AFCON 2023, while Mabasa won the PSL Golden Boot in the 2023-2024 season. Pirates' best player is returning What are your early thoughts on Selepe? Let us know by leaving a comment below or sending a WhatsApp to 060 011 0211. Also, subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
