Jani Allan
Encyclopedia
Jani Allan is a South African columnist and radio commentator. She became a household name as a columnist for the Sunday Times where she worked between 1979-90. She is also known for her alleged affair with an interviewee, the late right-wing political leader Eugène Terre'Blanche
. In 1989 she fled to London after she was the target of an assassination attempt, with a bomb exploding at her Johannesburg
apartment. In 1992, she filed an unsuccessful libel suit against the broadcaster Channel 4
over her depiction in Nick Broomfield
's 1991 documentary, The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife
. She returned to South Africa in 1996, working as a radio DJ and columnist before emigrating five years later. In April 2010 she was working as a restaurant hostess in Lambertville, New Jersey
where she is writing her memoirs.
. John Fry died when Allan was 10 years old. She is a trained classical pianist and recorded a televised piano concerto as a child, and made her debut with Johannesburg symphony orchestra at the age of 10. She attended boarding school in England, at Roedean School
. Later she graduated in Fine Art and attained an honours degree in English.
At the University of the Witwatersrand
where she was studying the history of art, she met her first husband, the finance magnate and art collector, Gordon Schachat
. After two years of marriage the couple divorced in 1984, they remained friends and Schachat supported Allan's testimony in the 1992 libel suit she brought against Channel 4
in London
.
Allan became a born-again Christian in 1994. She returned to South Africa two years later to be with her dying mother and later had a relationship with Mario Oriani-Ambrosini
, an IFP
MP and Italian expatriate. She emigrated to the United States in 2001 and was a PR for her future husband, Dr Peter Kulish, an American inventor she married a year later. The couple divorced in 2005.
She supposedly speaks fluent Italian
.
leader Eugène Terre'Blanche
. She later admitted, "I had not heard of him" as she had not been a particularly "political person" and that he was a strange subject for a newspaper she described as "extreme centre". On January 31, 1988, the Sunday Times published Allan's interview with Terre'Blanche for Allan's Face to Face column. In the interview, Allan wrote of her fascination with Terre'blanche: "Right now I've got to remind myself to breathe ... I'm impaled on the blue flames of his blowtorch eyes." Despite claiming that she became the "heroine of the newsroom" for her frankness, she later told the Sunday Times journalist Stuart Wavell
that she regretted describing Terre'Blanche in these terms, not realising the political veneration that would be read into them. She pointed towards the lack of knowledge she had about the Hitler personality cult "It sounds farfetched, but we are only taught South African history at school." Although Wavell identified that the words were not significant compared to her other material; "a perusal of her interviews shows a fondness for such extravagant language."
Meanwhile, she accompanied the AWB to some of their rallies and reported for her newspaper at the behest of her editor, Tertius Myburgh. Two weeks after the January 31, 1988 interview was published she attended an AWB rally. The rally was also frequented by the world press. She was followed by television crews. Allan later relayed the significance of the episode: "I was an ordinary journalist attending an event with the world press; how come they had footage of me if I hadn't been set up? The cameras were on me the whole time."
Again, she interviewed the AWB leader for the Sunday Times in November 1988, with an interview published by the Sunday after the Wit Wolf (Barend Strydom
) massacre in Pretoria
. Her words in the January interview were relayed when there was speculation regarding an affair, when they were photographed together at the Paardekraal Monument in Krugersdorp on December 27, 1988. Following the meeting, Terre'Blanche allegedly rammed his BMW through the Paardekraal Monument's gates. The crash prompted police and media appearances, and Allan and Terre'Blanche were photographed together on the Paardekraal monument steps. On the first Sunday of 1989, the Sunday Times published a front page article by Allan with the headline "The REAL story of me and ET and the SAP". In the article, she denied affair allegations and claimed that she and Terre'Blanche had arranged to meet with a media crew at the monument and that she had been commissioned to do a feature on Paardekraal revisited for a London-based news agency. Terre'Blanche asserted that "My relationship with her is absolutely professional" and related to his co-operation for her book project.
Allan later spoke about the Paardekraal incident in an interview with the London Sunday Times, remarking that it resembled a "set-up". She explained to Stuart Wavell
; "Fifteen police cars appeared and I don't know how many policemen. It was like the movies. I said, `Am I on Candid Camera?'".
Later relations cooled and an acrimonious battle ensued in the press, with Allan taking legal action against Terre'Blanche because of repeated nuisance contact.
A case of crimen injuria
was laid against Terre'Blanche in March 1989 relating to the damaged gates, with Allan subpoenaed as chief witness for the state. Ultimately Allan was not required to testify, and Terre'Blanche was acquitted.
In the early hours of 14 July 1989, the affair allegations and suspicions that Allan was a spy led Cornelius Lottering, member of breakaway AWB group Orde van die Dood
, to place a bomb outside Jani Allan's Sandton apartment. The bomb exploded on a wall abutting Allan's apartment shattered all the windows in the apartment complex up to the seventh floor but there were no casualties in the blast. Allan's newspaper reported in a front-page spread that the attack was a culmination of a campaign of intimidation against her that had included prowlers outsider her apartment and telephone death threats. Lottering was subsequently convicted of the assassination attempt.
In an article published by the Sunday Times on 23 July 1989, Allan recalled a significant episode when Terre'Blanche had drunkenly hammered on her flat door and eventually slept on the doorstep and that she had to step over him the next morning. Despite her objections, her editor insisted on publishing answering machine messages allegedly by Terre'Blanche, accompanied by a denial by Allan of counter claims that he had made against her. Allan recounted conversations with her editor "After the bomb he said, 'Right, we'll publish the tapes.' I said I didn't think that would be wise, as the security police had told me my life would be in danger. He said, 'We're going to blow them out of the water.'" She had just emerged from a course of traction for her seized back, and was then rushed to hospital with a bleeding ulcer because of the stress. Allan fled to Britain permanently for security reasons in the same week that the transcripts were published.
In retrospect, in an interview published by the London Sunday Times in 1990, Allan questioned whether her association with Terre'Blanche had been orchestrated by her editor, Tertius Myburgh. Despite having become his "blue-eyed girl" she questioned whether Myburgh had used her as part of a National Party
government plot to discredit the far right. Several South African journalists have alleged that Myburgh colluded with the South African Bureau of State Security
in the 1970s and its successor intelligence agencies in the 1980s.
In a lead story with the Cape Times
published in 1996 she spoke about Terre'Blanche; "He is a political Tyrannosaurus Rex ... a henpecked husband who has to remove his boots before he is allowed to enter his wife's pristine kitchen; a narcissist who carries a can of Fiesta hairspray in the pocket of his safari suit ... ".
Her name appeared extensively in the international press following the murder of Terre'Blanche on 3 April 2010. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail
she revealed "I suppose at some level I always thought he would come to a very violent end. He lived a violent existence and I knew he wasn't going to die peacefully in bed. I think he knew it too." She also told the newspaper that she believed his murder was politically orchestrated.
, the British broadcaster, for libel, claiming that in the documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife
by Nick Broomfield
she was presented as a "woman of easy virtue". Amid a montage of photographs from Allan's earlier days as a photographic model and Sunday Times quotes Broomfield claimed that Jani Allan had had an affair with Terre'Blanche. The documentary-maker and his crew were following the AWB and its activities for the documentary that was watched by 2.3 million Channel 4 viewers. The significance of the case led to its inclusion in the 1992 annual edition of Whitaker's Almanack
.
During the trial, Channel 4
denied the claim that they had suggested Allan had an affair with Terre'Blanche. Prior to the case, Allan had been awarded £40,000 in out-of-court settlements from the Evening Standard
and Options magazine over suggestive remarks made about the nature of Allan's association with Terre'Blanche.
Allan was represented by the late Peter Carter-Ruck
in the case and Channel 4 was represented by the late QC George Carman
. Carman described the case as rare in that it had "international, social, political and cultural implications."
The case sparked intense media interest in both Britain and South Africa, with several court transcripts appearing in the press. Allan famously told Carman
"Whatever award is given for libel, being cross-examined by you would not make it enough money." Several character witnesses were flown in from South Africa.
Terre'Blanche submitted a sworn statement to the London court denying that he had had an affair with Allan, saying "All these attempts to exaggerate the extent of my relationship with Miss Allan will ultimately be seen for what they are - a pack of lies." Allan's case was dealt a heavy blow by the statements of her former flatmate, Linda Shaw, the Sunday Times astrologer. Shaw testified in court that Allan had told her that she was in love with Terre'Blanche and wanted to marry him. She admitted that she knew about the relationship early on and that Allan had described Terre'Blanche as a "great lay, but a little heavy". Allan rebuffed these claims in court, describing Terre'Blanche's physical appearance unfavourably: "I've always thought he looked rather like a pig in a safari suit." Shaw described how she had peeped through a keyhole and witnessed Allan in a compromising position with a large man. Allan's QC, Charles Gray dismissed Shaw's "wildly unlikely" testimony and stressed the physical impossibility of her claim. He continued to express that her field of vision through the keyhole would not be sufficient to support her claim.
Shaw also testified that four months later, in September 1988, she got drunk with Allan and accompanied her to a 1 am rendezvous with Terre'Blanche. She alleged she watched from a wall as the couple kissed, embraced and fondled for half an hour in the back of Allan's car. Terre'Blanche denied ever having met Shaw. Allan alleged that Shaw had sinister motivations for testifying against her, saying "she has told people she was obsessed with me and that was the only way she could exorcise me. She was openly bisexual." She also agreed with the statement that Shaw was a "habitual liar" and continued "I disapproved of the number of men she had traipsing into her bedroom and suggested she should have a turnstile on her bedroom door". Andrew Broulidakis, a childhood friend of Allan's who also knew Shaw, brought into question the latter's character in a draft statement supplied to the court. Sebastian Faulks
remarked in The Guardian
: "What is it that makes George Carman worth £10,000 a day when plaintiffs witness Andrew Broulidakis was so easily able to wrong foot him." A witness also alleged that Shaw had disparagingly referred to Allan as a "frigid bitch" and it would be a "scream" to have her "nailed for gang-banging Nazis". Shaw also faced allegations that she had deliberately gotten pregnant to ensnare a boyfriend.
Further testimony was given by AWB financial secretary Kays Smit. Smit testified that Allan had phoned her to come and remove a drunken Terre'Blanche from her flat early one morning because Allan was expecting someone and was anxious to get rid of him. Smit testified to finding Terre'Blanche on Allan's couch "naked except for a khaki jacket around his shoulders and a pair of underpants". Her description of Terre'Blanche's green underpants with holes in them became the source of much ridicule in the press.
Additional testimony against Allan was given by former colleague Marlene Burger, who claimed Terre'Blanche had proposed to Allan in April 1989. According to Burger, Allan was thrilled and asked Burger to be her bridesmaid. Gray countered that the claims were "utterly unfounded and wholly untrue".
On day 2, Allan's 1984 diary was delivered to Carman's junior counsel and used against Allan in cross examination. The notebook contained details of Allan's sexual fantasies about a married airline pilot and it cast doubt on her professed celibacy. The diary's disappearance was investigated by the police, but it was found that the diary had been left in the home of an English couple with whom Allan had resided in 1989. Allan revealed "I was in a traumatic state and I wrote down my worst fears and probably my worst desires," continuing "It was a way of dealing with my sexual problems. [...] This notebook is deeply embarrassing. I wrote it when I was under psychiatric care." Later her former husband Gordon Schachat
provided evidence supporting claims Allan had made about her disinterest in sex and citing it as a reason for the breakdown of their marriage. Schachat also rebuffed perceptions in the media about her image: "her sexy public image is totally at odds with her real personality", continuing to describe her as "shy". He insisted she was neither an extreme right-winger or anti-semitic.
On day 11 of the case, Anthony Travers, a former British representative of the AWB and spectator of the court, was stabbed. A court usher received a call saying Peter Carter-Ruck, Allan's solicitor, had been stabbed. This stemmed from a message by Travers who was lying in an alleyway. He said to a passer-by 'tell Carter-Ruck I've been stabbed'. It quickly spread that Carter-Ruck had been stabbed, followed by speculation that he was the intended victim.
During the trial Jani Allan's London flat was burgled. She said that she received a death threat on a telephone call in the court ushers' offices. The hotel room of a Channel 4 producer, Stevie Godson, was also ransacked.
Allan eventually lost the case on August 5, 1992. The judge found that Channel 4's allegations had not defamed Allan, although he did not rule on whether or not there had been an affair. Reports emerged that Allan was considering an appeal and that Terre'Blanche was considering suing the broadcaster for libel.
Following the verdict, Allan reiterated her stance "I am not, nor have I ever been, involved with Terre'Blanche".
Soon after, several publications speculated about political forces at play during the case. The Independent
published details of what it called "dirty tricks
" used during the trial. Allan suggested that pro-government forces in South Africa wanted her to lose the case so that Terre'Blanche would be "irreparably damaged" in the eyes of his "God-fearing Calvinist followers". Another interpretation is that the AWB wanted to steal a manuscript of a book she was writing about the organisation. The AWB countered these claims, although Travers described the book as "dynamite." The South African business newspaper Financial Mail
published a lead story on 6 August detailing the theory that F.W. de Klerk had orchestrated the libel case to discredit Terre'Blanche and the far right movement in South Africa.
Allan later detailed how her interrogator Carman puts his victims through a "bloodless abattoir", delivering them into the "bone yard of damaged reputations".
In March 1993, Die Burger
reported that Allan was negotiating an appeal that was projected to be heard at the high court later that year. This was ultimately not pursued.
In 1995, during an interview with Cliff Saunders broadcast by the SABC, she said "The facts of the matter are [that] I did not do any of the things of which I was accused by paid witnesses." She was soon interviewed by Lin Sampson for Playboy
and reinforced her disagreement with the defence witnesses. In the favourable article, Sampson described the rage against Allan as "the first public showing of what would become the new South African psychosis". Sunday Times defence witnesses were said to be irate that their shared publisher, Times Media, published the article. The newspaper proceeded to publish an extract of the interview to promote its sister magazine sales.
In a 2002 BBC
film Get Carman: the trials of George Carman QC, Allan's case was dramatised together with a number of other high-profile Carmen cases. Allan was portrayed by English actress Sarah Berger in the production starring David Suchet
. The Guardian
decried Berger's accent for the role as "crude" and "caricature"-like, unlike that of Allan's, described as "relatively cultured and by no means excessively strong South African accent".
The libel suit is mentioned amid a montage of photos and camera footage of Jani Allan and reporters outside the London court in 1992, in the 2006 Nick Broomfield sequel His Big White Self
, a sequel to The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife, the documentary that spawned the libel suit.
In 2010, Allan reasserted that she believed affair allegations were orchestrated by South African intelligence services. Despite defending affair claims she made, Linda Shaw also agreed with Allan's assertion that intelligence services used the story to discredit Terre
Blanche and the far-right movement.
and Bryanston High School.
In 1979 the newspaper began publishing her "Just Jani" column, an interview-based column with public figures from diverse fields such as entertainment, sport, business, art and politics. She was invited to sit for a portrait by Vladimir Tretchikoff
, the acclaimed artist and interviewee. She later appeared in a 1998 documentary Red Jacket
to discuss the artist, that he also appeared in. At the request of another acclaimed artist and interviewee, Walter Battiss
, she agreed to become a resident of the famed Fook Island
, an "island of the imagination". She also published several pieces and interviews with the UFO contactee Elizabeth Klarer
. She also interviewed several international celebrities for the newspaper such as Bill Haley
, Goldie Hawn
, Barry Manilow
, Ursula Andress
and Oliver Reed
.
Later she published Face Value
, a selection of "Just Jani" columns. Allan provided background details in the collection, detailing the reactions of some interviewees to their stories and evaluations by Allan herself. The photographer was Andrzej Sawa
.
Then in 1987, she launched "Face To Face", a political interview column for the newspaper. Political subjects were diverse, with guests such as Eugène Terre'Blanche
, Winnie Mandela, Denis Worrall
and Mangosuthu Buthelezi
.
During her tenure at the Sunday Times, she also contributed features for the Sunday Times Colour Magazine, which was relaunched in 1981.
In 2006, her ex-flatmate, libel suit witness for the defence, Sunday Times astrologer Linda Shaw referred to Allan's profile as a Sunday Times journalist in the 1980s; "Jani used to write articles about all the leaders and all the top people in the country or the world at the time. And she was almost a movie star in her own right." In 2010, a Daily Mail
columnist observing on her time at the newspaper, described her as "famous in South African journalism as the plain-speaking voice of reason."
Myburgh described her journalistic style as "highly individual" and cited New Journalism
as an influence. In the 1980s, the Sunday Times was Africa's largest newspaper with a circulation of 3 million. Allan also represented the newspaper as a guest on several South African television programmes.
Following the failed assassination attempt in 1989, she left South Africa and relocated to London
. She continued to work for the Johannesburg newspaper from their London office.
and published opinion pieces for the newspaper.
She worked for the SABC broadcaster and journalist, Cliff Saunders's London press agency following the 1992 trial and continued publishing articles for various publications. These included the London Evening Standard where she published reports on her inquisitor George Carman
's latest case, Carman was defending The People
against a libel case taken by Mona Bauwens. She also wrote for The Spectator
where she memorably described Carman as "a small bewigged ferret".
The book that had been embroiled in controversy over its content during the libel case was titled White Sunset, based on right-wing groups in South Africa. The book was alluded to in 1988 during her association with Terre'Blanche. In 1992 her agent described the book to the British media as "a very serious look at the break-up of white society in South Africa" which features "fly-on-the-wall reportage". Several chapters had been seen and cover art had been developed but the project was ultimately not pursued. She had also completed Fast Cars to Ventersdorp, a satirical look at her involvement with Terre'Blanche. It was compared to the style of Tom Sharpe
and in the foreword she explained that she had written it because, "I want to leave the past behind me."
Her return to South Africa in 1996 was marked by an appearance on the cover of Style
magazine and an in-depth interview.
In 1997 she took up a position as a host on Cape Talk
Radio, a Cape Town
-based radio show and launched her show "Jani's World", which aired on Friday evenings between 9 p.m. and midnight. The guests were from various fields and backgrounds, and often included New Age
guru-types by telephone from the United States.
The show became one of the station's most popular, but became controversial in September 1999 when Allan interviewed American right-winger Keith Johnson of the Militia of Montana
. Johnson denounced homosexuality, race-mixing and former South African President Nelson Mandela
and offended Jewish listeners with his antisemitic views on rabbinical teachings and Judaism. Allan distanced herself from these views. She did not acknowledge it was a mistake to broadcast the interview but did apologise for the offense to Jewish listeners. Due to the negative reaction from listeners, including the South African Jewish Board of Deputies the station was instructed to issue an apology two days later.
Toward's the end of her tenure, on-air she accused the station owner, Primedia
of nepotism and said that they found her show too controversial and politically incorrect
. Her contract was terminated in October 2000, although no official reason was given; when questioned, the station manager, Lucia Venter, claimed that "All the announcers receive positive and negative feedback. Allan does not necessarily get more than others."
Soon after establishing a radio show in Cape Town, she was contracted by Mweb to launch the website "CyberJani" with a weekly column, letters page and live chatline. David Bullard
accused her of plagiarising his work in one edition of her MWeb column.
In February 2000, she gained media attention over her claims which she published in an article for Sunday Newspaper Rapport. She claimed that whilst working at journalist Cliff Saunders's London press agency in the early 1990s, she was used as an "unwitting spy" against Inkatha Freedom Party
(IFP) and its leader and her close personal friendMangosuthu Buthelezi
for the state. Between 2000-2001, she was a speechwriter for Buthelezi.
's show. During the show, which had a listenership of 7 million, Allan accused the South African government of a genocidal campaign against white Afrikaners, citing South African Farm Murders and she encouraged Americans to sponsor white Afrikaner "refugees". She later became the regular Friday night weekly guest-commentator. In 2005, she made several appearances on the Republican radio show Flipside with Robby Noel. She also appeared on the Larry Pratt
show, discussing gun laws in place in South Africa.
Between 2004 and 2005 she contributed a number of columns to Christian and conservative, right-wing publications and sites such as the Jeff Rense
website, AfricanCrisis, WorldNetDaily
and she also published a number of columns on her personal blog. She has also been working as a published astrologer.
In 2006, Allan's controversial Terre'Blanche column was republished in the book A Century of Sundays: 100 Years of Breaking News in the Sunday Times. The book included details of the libel case and reproduced reportage about the case.
Following Terre'Blanche's murder in April 2010 she was hounded by the international press for an interview. Eventually she gave a full length interview to Britain's Daily Mail
. The interview was also republished in all Independent Online
titles across South Africa. She revealed in the interview that she was already writing her memoirs, with the working title of A Nettle That Must Be Grasped.
Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche was a former member of South Africa's Herstigte Nasionale Party who founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging during the apartheid era...
. In 1989 she fled to London after she was the target of an assassination attempt, with a bomb exploding at her Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
apartment. In 1992, she filed an unsuccessful libel suit against the broadcaster Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
over her depiction in Nick Broomfield
Nick Broomfield
Nicholas "Nick" Broomfield is an English documentary film-maker. He is the son of Maurice Broomfield, a photographer.Broomfield works with a minimal crew, recording sound himself and using one or two camera operators...
's 1991 documentary, The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife
The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife
The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife is a 1991 British feature-length documentary film set during the final days of the apartheid regime in South Africa, particularly centering on Eugène Terre'Blanche, founder and leader of the far-right, white supremacist political organisation AWB. The...
. She returned to South Africa in 1996, working as a radio DJ and columnist before emigrating five years later. In April 2010 she was working as a restaurant hostess in Lambertville, New Jersey
Lambertville, New Jersey
Lambertville is a city in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 3,906.Lambertville was originally incorporated as a town by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 1, 1849, from portions of West Amwell Township...
where she is writing her memoirs.
Personal life
Allan was born the daughter of an Italian expeditionary and a Rhodesian socialite. She was adopted by a wealthy British expatriate couple, John and Janet Fry at age one month old. The family briefly lived in England but her Scottish father was advised by doctors to move to a warmer climate. Subsequenly Allan was brought up in the Johannesburg suburb of BryanstonBryanston, Gauteng
Bryanston is an upper class, wealthy residential suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. First named as an area in 1949, it was established in 1969 as a suburb of Sandton and provided with tarred roads and municipal services, but after municipal boundaries were revised following the end of Apartheid,...
. John Fry died when Allan was 10 years old. She is a trained classical pianist and recorded a televised piano concerto as a child, and made her debut with Johannesburg symphony orchestra at the age of 10. She attended boarding school in England, at Roedean School
Roedean School
-Roedeanians in fiction:* Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward * Dawn Drummond-Clayton * Emily James...
. Later she graduated in Fine Art and attained an honours degree in English.
At the University of the Witwatersrand
University of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...
where she was studying the history of art, she met her first husband, the finance magnate and art collector, Gordon Schachat
Gordon Schachat
Gordon Schachat is a South African businessman and prominent art collector. He is featured regularly on the Sunday Times Rich List.-Personal life:...
. After two years of marriage the couple divorced in 1984, they remained friends and Schachat supported Allan's testimony in the 1992 libel suit she brought against Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Allan became a born-again Christian in 1994. She returned to South Africa two years later to be with her dying mother and later had a relationship with Mario Oriani-Ambrosini
Mario Oriani-Ambrosini
Mario Gaspare R. Oriani-Ambrosini is an Italian-American constitutional lawyer and politician, currently a Member of Parliament in South Africa with the Inkatha Freedom Party.-Biography:...
, an IFP
Inkatha Freedom Party
The Inkatha Freedom Party is a political party in South Africa. Since its founding, it has been led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. It is currently the fourth largest party in the National Assembly of South Africa.-History:...
MP and Italian expatriate. She emigrated to the United States in 2001 and was a PR for her future husband, Dr Peter Kulish, an American inventor she married a year later. The couple divorced in 2005.
She supposedly speaks fluent Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
Association with Eugène Terre'Blanche
In December 1987 she was asked at an editorial conference to "go and have tea" with the right-wing militant Afrikaner WeerstandsbewegingAfrikaner Weerstandsbeweging
The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging is a South African far right separatist political and former paramilitary organization, since its creation dedicated to secessionist Afrikaner nationalism and the creation of an independent Boer-Afrikaner republic or "" in part of South Africa...
leader Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche was a former member of South Africa's Herstigte Nasionale Party who founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging during the apartheid era...
. She later admitted, "I had not heard of him" as she had not been a particularly "political person" and that he was a strange subject for a newspaper she described as "extreme centre". On January 31, 1988, the Sunday Times published Allan's interview with Terre'Blanche for Allan's Face to Face column. In the interview, Allan wrote of her fascination with Terre'blanche: "Right now I've got to remind myself to breathe ... I'm impaled on the blue flames of his blowtorch eyes." Despite claiming that she became the "heroine of the newsroom" for her frankness, she later told the Sunday Times journalist Stuart Wavell
Stuart Wavell
Stuart Wavell is a British journalist. Previously Arts editor and Media editor of The Guardian and Paris correspondent, he’s now a senior feature writer and author of the Weekly Profile for the UK The Sunday Times...
that she regretted describing Terre'Blanche in these terms, not realising the political veneration that would be read into them. She pointed towards the lack of knowledge she had about the Hitler personality cult "It sounds farfetched, but we are only taught South African history at school." Although Wavell identified that the words were not significant compared to her other material; "a perusal of her interviews shows a fondness for such extravagant language."
Meanwhile, she accompanied the AWB to some of their rallies and reported for her newspaper at the behest of her editor, Tertius Myburgh. Two weeks after the January 31, 1988 interview was published she attended an AWB rally. The rally was also frequented by the world press. She was followed by television crews. Allan later relayed the significance of the episode: "I was an ordinary journalist attending an event with the world press; how come they had footage of me if I hadn't been set up? The cameras were on me the whole time."
Again, she interviewed the AWB leader for the Sunday Times in November 1988, with an interview published by the Sunday after the Wit Wolf (Barend Strydom
Barend Strydom
Barend Hendrik Strydom, also known as the Wit Wolf , is a convicted spree killer who was sentenced to death for shooting dead seven black people in Strijdom Square in Pretoria, South Africa on November 15, 1988...
) massacre in Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
. Her words in the January interview were relayed when there was speculation regarding an affair, when they were photographed together at the Paardekraal Monument in Krugersdorp on December 27, 1988. Following the meeting, Terre'Blanche allegedly rammed his BMW through the Paardekraal Monument's gates. The crash prompted police and media appearances, and Allan and Terre'Blanche were photographed together on the Paardekraal monument steps. On the first Sunday of 1989, the Sunday Times published a front page article by Allan with the headline "The REAL story of me and ET and the SAP". In the article, she denied affair allegations and claimed that she and Terre'Blanche had arranged to meet with a media crew at the monument and that she had been commissioned to do a feature on Paardekraal revisited for a London-based news agency. Terre'Blanche asserted that "My relationship with her is absolutely professional" and related to his co-operation for her book project.
Allan later spoke about the Paardekraal incident in an interview with the London Sunday Times, remarking that it resembled a "set-up". She explained to Stuart Wavell
Stuart Wavell
Stuart Wavell is a British journalist. Previously Arts editor and Media editor of The Guardian and Paris correspondent, he’s now a senior feature writer and author of the Weekly Profile for the UK The Sunday Times...
; "Fifteen police cars appeared and I don't know how many policemen. It was like the movies. I said, `Am I on Candid Camera?'".
Later relations cooled and an acrimonious battle ensued in the press, with Allan taking legal action against Terre'Blanche because of repeated nuisance contact.
A case of crimen injuria
Crimen injuria
Crimen injuria is a crime under South African common law, defined to be the act of "unlawfully, intentionally and seriously impairing the dignity of another." Although difficult to precisely define, the crime is used in the prosecution of certain instances of road rage, stalking, racially...
was laid against Terre'Blanche in March 1989 relating to the damaged gates, with Allan subpoenaed as chief witness for the state. Ultimately Allan was not required to testify, and Terre'Blanche was acquitted.
In the early hours of 14 July 1989, the affair allegations and suspicions that Allan was a spy led Cornelius Lottering, member of breakaway AWB group Orde van die Dood
Orde van die Dood
The Orde van die Dood was a militant offshoot of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement which sought to create a white Boer homeland in South Africa, beginning in the 1980s.The movement gained exposure in 1989 when member Cornelius Lottering attempted to assassinate the journalist, Jani...
, to place a bomb outside Jani Allan's Sandton apartment. The bomb exploded on a wall abutting Allan's apartment shattered all the windows in the apartment complex up to the seventh floor but there were no casualties in the blast. Allan's newspaper reported in a front-page spread that the attack was a culmination of a campaign of intimidation against her that had included prowlers outsider her apartment and telephone death threats. Lottering was subsequently convicted of the assassination attempt.
In an article published by the Sunday Times on 23 July 1989, Allan recalled a significant episode when Terre'Blanche had drunkenly hammered on her flat door and eventually slept on the doorstep and that she had to step over him the next morning. Despite her objections, her editor insisted on publishing answering machine messages allegedly by Terre'Blanche, accompanied by a denial by Allan of counter claims that he had made against her. Allan recounted conversations with her editor "After the bomb he said, 'Right, we'll publish the tapes.' I said I didn't think that would be wise, as the security police had told me my life would be in danger. He said, 'We're going to blow them out of the water.'" She had just emerged from a course of traction for her seized back, and was then rushed to hospital with a bleeding ulcer because of the stress. Allan fled to Britain permanently for security reasons in the same week that the transcripts were published.
In retrospect, in an interview published by the London Sunday Times in 1990, Allan questioned whether her association with Terre'Blanche had been orchestrated by her editor, Tertius Myburgh. Despite having become his "blue-eyed girl" she questioned whether Myburgh had used her as part of a National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
government plot to discredit the far right. Several South African journalists have alleged that Myburgh colluded with the South African Bureau of State Security
South African Bureau of State Security
The South African Bureau for State Security was established in 1969 and replaced by the National Intelligence Service in 1980. The Bureau's job was to monitor national security...
in the 1970s and its successor intelligence agencies in the 1980s.
In a lead story with the Cape Times
Cape Times
The Cape Times is an English language morning newspaper owned by Independent News & Media and published in Cape Town, South Africa. The first edition of the newspaper was published on 27 March 1876 by then editor Frederick York St Leger...
published in 1996 she spoke about Terre'Blanche; "He is a political Tyrannosaurus Rex ... a henpecked husband who has to remove his boots before he is allowed to enter his wife's pristine kitchen; a narcissist who carries a can of Fiesta hairspray in the pocket of his safari suit ... ".
Her name appeared extensively in the international press following the murder of Terre'Blanche on 3 April 2010. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
she revealed "I suppose at some level I always thought he would come to a very violent end. He lived a violent existence and I knew he wasn't going to die peacefully in bed. I think he knew it too." She also told the newspaper that she believed his murder was politically orchestrated.
Libel suit against Channel 4
In 1992, Allan sued Channel 4Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, the British broadcaster, for libel, claiming that in the documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife
The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife
The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife is a 1991 British feature-length documentary film set during the final days of the apartheid regime in South Africa, particularly centering on Eugène Terre'Blanche, founder and leader of the far-right, white supremacist political organisation AWB. The...
by Nick Broomfield
Nick Broomfield
Nicholas "Nick" Broomfield is an English documentary film-maker. He is the son of Maurice Broomfield, a photographer.Broomfield works with a minimal crew, recording sound himself and using one or two camera operators...
she was presented as a "woman of easy virtue". Amid a montage of photographs from Allan's earlier days as a photographic model and Sunday Times quotes Broomfield claimed that Jani Allan had had an affair with Terre'Blanche. The documentary-maker and his crew were following the AWB and its activities for the documentary that was watched by 2.3 million Channel 4 viewers. The significance of the case led to its inclusion in the 1992 annual edition of Whitaker's Almanack
Whitaker's Almanack
Whitaker's Almanack is a reference book, published annually in the United Kingdom. The book was originally published by J Whitaker & Sons from 1868 to 1997, then by The Stationery Office, from 2003 to 2010 by A & C Black and from 2011 by .-Content:...
.
During the trial, Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
denied the claim that they had suggested Allan had an affair with Terre'Blanche. Prior to the case, Allan had been awarded £40,000 in out-of-court settlements from the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
and Options magazine over suggestive remarks made about the nature of Allan's association with Terre'Blanche.
Allan was represented by the late Peter Carter-Ruck
Peter Carter-Ruck
Peter Frederick Carter-Ruck was an English lawyer, specialising in libel cases. The firm he founded, Carter-Ruck, is still practising.-Personal life:...
in the case and Channel 4 was represented by the late QC George Carman
George Carman
George Alfred Carman, QC , was a leading English barrister of the 1980s and 1990s. He first came to the attention of the general public in 1979, when he successfully defended the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe after he was charged with conspiracy to murder...
. Carman described the case as rare in that it had "international, social, political and cultural implications."
The case sparked intense media interest in both Britain and South Africa, with several court transcripts appearing in the press. Allan famously told Carman
"Whatever award is given for libel, being cross-examined by you would not make it enough money." Several character witnesses were flown in from South Africa.
Terre'Blanche submitted a sworn statement to the London court denying that he had had an affair with Allan, saying "All these attempts to exaggerate the extent of my relationship with Miss Allan will ultimately be seen for what they are - a pack of lies." Allan's case was dealt a heavy blow by the statements of her former flatmate, Linda Shaw, the Sunday Times astrologer. Shaw testified in court that Allan had told her that she was in love with Terre'Blanche and wanted to marry him. She admitted that she knew about the relationship early on and that Allan had described Terre'Blanche as a "great lay, but a little heavy". Allan rebuffed these claims in court, describing Terre'Blanche's physical appearance unfavourably: "I've always thought he looked rather like a pig in a safari suit." Shaw described how she had peeped through a keyhole and witnessed Allan in a compromising position with a large man. Allan's QC, Charles Gray dismissed Shaw's "wildly unlikely" testimony and stressed the physical impossibility of her claim. He continued to express that her field of vision through the keyhole would not be sufficient to support her claim.
Shaw also testified that four months later, in September 1988, she got drunk with Allan and accompanied her to a 1 am rendezvous with Terre'Blanche. She alleged she watched from a wall as the couple kissed, embraced and fondled for half an hour in the back of Allan's car. Terre'Blanche denied ever having met Shaw. Allan alleged that Shaw had sinister motivations for testifying against her, saying "she has told people she was obsessed with me and that was the only way she could exorcise me. She was openly bisexual." She also agreed with the statement that Shaw was a "habitual liar" and continued "I disapproved of the number of men she had traipsing into her bedroom and suggested she should have a turnstile on her bedroom door". Andrew Broulidakis, a childhood friend of Allan's who also knew Shaw, brought into question the latter's character in a draft statement supplied to the court. Sebastian Faulks
Sebastian Faulks
-Early life:Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 in Donnington, Berkshire to Peter Faulks and Pamela . Edward Faulks, Baron Faulks, is his older brother. He was educated at Elstree School, Reading and went on to Wellington College, Berkshire...
remarked in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
: "What is it that makes George Carman worth £10,000 a day when plaintiffs witness Andrew Broulidakis was so easily able to wrong foot him." A witness also alleged that Shaw had disparagingly referred to Allan as a "frigid bitch" and it would be a "scream" to have her "nailed for gang-banging Nazis". Shaw also faced allegations that she had deliberately gotten pregnant to ensnare a boyfriend.
Further testimony was given by AWB financial secretary Kays Smit. Smit testified that Allan had phoned her to come and remove a drunken Terre'Blanche from her flat early one morning because Allan was expecting someone and was anxious to get rid of him. Smit testified to finding Terre'Blanche on Allan's couch "naked except for a khaki jacket around his shoulders and a pair of underpants". Her description of Terre'Blanche's green underpants with holes in them became the source of much ridicule in the press.
Additional testimony against Allan was given by former colleague Marlene Burger, who claimed Terre'Blanche had proposed to Allan in April 1989. According to Burger, Allan was thrilled and asked Burger to be her bridesmaid. Gray countered that the claims were "utterly unfounded and wholly untrue".
On day 2, Allan's 1984 diary was delivered to Carman's junior counsel and used against Allan in cross examination. The notebook contained details of Allan's sexual fantasies about a married airline pilot and it cast doubt on her professed celibacy. The diary's disappearance was investigated by the police, but it was found that the diary had been left in the home of an English couple with whom Allan had resided in 1989. Allan revealed "I was in a traumatic state and I wrote down my worst fears and probably my worst desires," continuing "It was a way of dealing with my sexual problems. [...] This notebook is deeply embarrassing. I wrote it when I was under psychiatric care." Later her former husband Gordon Schachat
Gordon Schachat
Gordon Schachat is a South African businessman and prominent art collector. He is featured regularly on the Sunday Times Rich List.-Personal life:...
provided evidence supporting claims Allan had made about her disinterest in sex and citing it as a reason for the breakdown of their marriage. Schachat also rebuffed perceptions in the media about her image: "her sexy public image is totally at odds with her real personality", continuing to describe her as "shy". He insisted she was neither an extreme right-winger or anti-semitic.
On day 11 of the case, Anthony Travers, a former British representative of the AWB and spectator of the court, was stabbed. A court usher received a call saying Peter Carter-Ruck, Allan's solicitor, had been stabbed. This stemmed from a message by Travers who was lying in an alleyway. He said to a passer-by 'tell Carter-Ruck I've been stabbed'. It quickly spread that Carter-Ruck had been stabbed, followed by speculation that he was the intended victim.
During the trial Jani Allan's London flat was burgled. She said that she received a death threat on a telephone call in the court ushers' offices. The hotel room of a Channel 4 producer, Stevie Godson, was also ransacked.
Allan eventually lost the case on August 5, 1992. The judge found that Channel 4's allegations had not defamed Allan, although he did not rule on whether or not there had been an affair. Reports emerged that Allan was considering an appeal and that Terre'Blanche was considering suing the broadcaster for libel.
Following the verdict, Allan reiterated her stance "I am not, nor have I ever been, involved with Terre'Blanche".
Soon after, several publications speculated about political forces at play during the case. The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
published details of what it called "dirty tricks
Dirty tricks
Dirty tricks are unethical, duplicitous, slanderous or illegal tactics employed to destroy or diminish the effectiveness of political or business opponents...
" used during the trial. Allan suggested that pro-government forces in South Africa wanted her to lose the case so that Terre'Blanche would be "irreparably damaged" in the eyes of his "God-fearing Calvinist followers". Another interpretation is that the AWB wanted to steal a manuscript of a book she was writing about the organisation. The AWB countered these claims, although Travers described the book as "dynamite." The South African business newspaper Financial Mail
Financial Mail
Financial Mail , is a South African business publication focused on reaching the country's top business people. This weekly publication, which was launched in 1959, underwent a major "look and feel" change in 2006, which saw it reclaim its position as the most widely read English business weekly in...
published a lead story on 6 August detailing the theory that F.W. de Klerk had orchestrated the libel case to discredit Terre'Blanche and the far right movement in South Africa.
Allan later detailed how her interrogator Carman puts his victims through a "bloodless abattoir", delivering them into the "bone yard of damaged reputations".
In March 1993, Die Burger
Die Burger
Die Burger is a daily Afrikaans language newspaper, published by Naspers. By 2008, it had a circulation of 91,665 in the Western and Eastern Cape Provinces of South Africa...
reported that Allan was negotiating an appeal that was projected to be heard at the high court later that year. This was ultimately not pursued.
In 1995, during an interview with Cliff Saunders broadcast by the SABC, she said "The facts of the matter are [that] I did not do any of the things of which I was accused by paid witnesses." She was soon interviewed by Lin Sampson for Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
and reinforced her disagreement with the defence witnesses. In the favourable article, Sampson described the rage against Allan as "the first public showing of what would become the new South African psychosis". Sunday Times defence witnesses were said to be irate that their shared publisher, Times Media, published the article. The newspaper proceeded to publish an extract of the interview to promote its sister magazine sales.
In a 2002 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
film Get Carman: the trials of George Carman QC, Allan's case was dramatised together with a number of other high-profile Carmen cases. Allan was portrayed by English actress Sarah Berger in the production starring David Suchet
David Suchet
David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...
. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
decried Berger's accent for the role as "crude" and "caricature"-like, unlike that of Allan's, described as "relatively cultured and by no means excessively strong South African accent".
The libel suit is mentioned amid a montage of photos and camera footage of Jani Allan and reporters outside the London court in 1992, in the 2006 Nick Broomfield sequel His Big White Self
His Big White Self
His Big White Self is a 2006 documentary film made by Nick Broomfield. It is a follow up to his 1991 film The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife. It was shown for the first time as part of More4's Nick Broomfield week which started on February 27, 2006.The documentary follows Broomfield as he...
, a sequel to The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife, the documentary that spawned the libel suit.
In 2010, Allan reasserted that she believed affair allegations were orchestrated by South African intelligence services. Despite defending affair claims she made, Linda Shaw also agreed with Allan's assertion that intelligence services used the story to discredit Terre
Blanche and the far-right movement.
Career
Prior to becoming a journalist, she worked as a photographic model and an English and Art teacher at Wynberg Boys' High SchoolWynberg Boys' High School
Wynberg Boys' High School is a public school for boys in Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa.It was founded in 1841 and is the second oldest school in South Africa. It had humble beginnings in Glebe Cottage under first Headmaster John McNaughton and changed site three times before moving onto its...
and Bryanston High School.
1979-1990 Just Jani, Face to Face
Allan was employed by Sunday Times editor Tertius Myburgh on the strength of four music reviews. In particular Allan enjoyed success as a popular and respected columnist for the newspaper. She was voted "the most admired person in South Africa." in a Gallup poll commissioned by the Sunday Times. She was also considered among some to be "South Africa's leading columnist" at her peak in the 1980s.In 1979 the newspaper began publishing her "Just Jani" column, an interview-based column with public figures from diverse fields such as entertainment, sport, business, art and politics. She was invited to sit for a portrait by Vladimir Tretchikoff
Vladimir Tretchikoff
Vladimir Grigoryevich Tretchikoff was one of the most commercially successful artists of all time - his painting Chinese Girl is one of the best selling art prints ever.Tretchikoff was a...
, the acclaimed artist and interviewee. She later appeared in a 1998 documentary Red Jacket
Red Jacket (documentary)
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.-Synopsis:...
to discuss the artist, that he also appeared in. At the request of another acclaimed artist and interviewee, Walter Battiss
Walter Battiss
Walter Whall Battiss was a South African artist, generally considered the foremost South African abstract painter and known as the creator of the quirky "Fook Island" concept....
, she agreed to become a resident of the famed Fook Island
Walter Battiss
Walter Whall Battiss was a South African artist, generally considered the foremost South African abstract painter and known as the creator of the quirky "Fook Island" concept....
, an "island of the imagination". She also published several pieces and interviews with the UFO contactee Elizabeth Klarer
Elizabeth Klarer
Elizabeth Klarer was a South African who claimed to have been contacted by extraterrestials between 1954 and 1963. She was one of the first women to claim a sexual relationship with an extraterrestrial.-Biography:...
. She also interviewed several international celebrities for the newspaper such as Bill Haley
Bill Haley
Bill Haley was one of the first American rock and roll musicians. He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and their hit song "Rock Around the Clock".-Early life and career:...
, Goldie Hawn
Goldie Hawn
Goldie Jeanne Hawn is an American actress, film director, producer, and occasional singer. Hawn is known for her roles in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Private Benjamin, Foul Play, Overboard, Bird on a Wire, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower, for which she won the 1969...
, Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...
, Ursula Andress
Ursula Andress
Ursula Andress is a Swiss actress and a sex symbol of the 1960s. She is known for her roles as Bond girl Honey Ryder in Dr...
and Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
.
Face Value (book)
Face Value is a book of collected journalism by South African journalist Jani Allan. The book is compiled from selections of Allan's successful 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...
, a selection of "Just Jani" columns. Allan provided background details in the collection, detailing the reactions of some interviewees to their stories and evaluations by Allan herself. The photographer was Andrzej Sawa
Andrzej Sawa
-Early life:Sawa was born in a German labour camp in Poland in 1941 and lived there with his mother and grandmother until the end of the Second World War in 1945...
.
Then in 1987, she launched "Face To Face", a political interview column for the newspaper. Political subjects were diverse, with guests such as Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Terre'Blanche
Eugène Ney Terre'Blanche was a former member of South Africa's Herstigte Nasionale Party who founded the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging during the apartheid era...
, Winnie Mandela, Denis Worrall
Denis Worrall
Denis John Worrall is an academic, businessman, and former politician and diplomat. He was South African ambassador to Australia from 1982 to 1984 and then Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1984 to 1987. He resigned his post in order to return to South Africa and form the liberal...
and Mangosuthu Buthelezi
Mangosuthu Buthelezi
Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi is a South African Zulu politician who founded the Inkatha Freedom Party in 1975 and continues to lead the party today.His praise name is Shenge.-Early life:...
.
During her tenure at the Sunday Times, she also contributed features for the Sunday Times Colour Magazine, which was relaunched in 1981.
In 2006, her ex-flatmate, libel suit witness for the defence, Sunday Times astrologer Linda Shaw referred to Allan's profile as a Sunday Times journalist in the 1980s; "Jani used to write articles about all the leaders and all the top people in the country or the world at the time. And she was almost a movie star in her own right." In 2010, a Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
columnist observing on her time at the newspaper, described her as "famous in South African journalism as the plain-speaking voice of reason."
Myburgh described her journalistic style as "highly individual" and cited New Journalism
New Journalism
New Journalism was a style of 1960s and 1970s news writing and journalism which used literary techniques deemed unconventional at the time. The term was codified with its current meaning by Tom Wolfe in a 1973 collection of journalism articles he published as The New Journalism, which included...
as an influence. In the 1980s, the Sunday Times was Africa's largest newspaper with a circulation of 3 million. Allan also represented the newspaper as a guest on several South African television programmes.
Following the failed assassination attempt in 1989, she left South Africa and relocated to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. She continued to work for the Johannesburg newspaper from their London office.
1990-1996 London
In 1990 she worked as a society columnist for the London Sunday Times, writing about prestigious social events she attended on assignment. She also interviewed celebrities such as Charlton HestonCharlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
and published opinion pieces for the newspaper.
She worked for the SABC broadcaster and journalist, Cliff Saunders's London press agency following the 1992 trial and continued publishing articles for various publications. These included the London Evening Standard where she published reports on her inquisitor George Carman
George Carman
George Alfred Carman, QC , was a leading English barrister of the 1980s and 1990s. He first came to the attention of the general public in 1979, when he successfully defended the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe after he was charged with conspiracy to murder...
's latest case, Carman was defending The People
The People
The People, previously known as the Sunday People, is a British tabloid Sunday-only newspaper. The paper was founded on 16 October 1881.It is published by the Trinity Mirror Group.In July 2011 it had an average daily circulation of 806,544....
against a libel case taken by Mona Bauwens. She also wrote for The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
where she memorably described Carman as "a small bewigged ferret".
The book that had been embroiled in controversy over its content during the libel case was titled White Sunset, based on right-wing groups in South Africa. The book was alluded to in 1988 during her association with Terre'Blanche. In 1992 her agent described the book to the British media as "a very serious look at the break-up of white society in South Africa" which features "fly-on-the-wall reportage". Several chapters had been seen and cover art had been developed but the project was ultimately not pursued. She had also completed Fast Cars to Ventersdorp, a satirical look at her involvement with Terre'Blanche. It was compared to the style of Tom Sharpe
Tom Sharpe
Tom Sharpe is an English satirical author, best known for his Wilt series of novels.Sharpe was born in London and moved to South Africa in 1951, where he worked as a social worker and a teacher, before being deported for sedition in 1961...
and in the foreword she explained that she had written it because, "I want to leave the past behind me."
1996-2001 Jani's World, CyberJani
Style (magazine)
Style was an iconic South African women's magazine that was founded in the 1980s and published by Caxton and CTP Publishers and Printers Limited. In late 2006, it was announced that the magazine would be discontinued. The magazine has often been associated with a Kugel readership....
magazine and an in-depth interview.
In 1997 she took up a position as a host on Cape Talk
Cape Talk
567 CapeTalk is a commercial AM radio station based in Cape Town, South Africa, broadcasting on AM/MW 567 to Cape Town. The station is also webcast via its website. It claims to be Cape Town's number one news and talk station, offering news, sport, business and actuality programming, with plenty of...
Radio, a Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
-based radio show and launched her show "Jani's World", which aired on Friday evenings between 9 p.m. and midnight. The guests were from various fields and backgrounds, and often included New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
guru-types by telephone from the United States.
The show became one of the station's most popular, but became controversial in September 1999 when Allan interviewed American right-winger Keith Johnson of the Militia of Montana
Militia of Montana
The Militia of Montana is an organized paramilitary organization founded by John Trochmann, a retired maker of snowmobile parts, of Noxon, Montana, USA. The organization formed from the remnants of the United Citizens for Justice in late 1992 in response to the standoff between agents of the...
. Johnson denounced homosexuality, race-mixing and former South African President Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
and offended Jewish listeners with his antisemitic views on rabbinical teachings and Judaism. Allan distanced herself from these views. She did not acknowledge it was a mistake to broadcast the interview but did apologise for the offense to Jewish listeners. Due to the negative reaction from listeners, including the South African Jewish Board of Deputies the station was instructed to issue an apology two days later.
Toward's the end of her tenure, on-air she accused the station owner, Primedia
Primedia
PRIMEDIA Inc. is privately held American media company fully owned by TPG Capital.Consumer Source Inc. is the sole operating division of PRIMEDIA and helps millions of consumers find apartments, houses for rent, and new homes for sale through its Internet, mobile, and print products...
of nepotism and said that they found her show too controversial and politically incorrect
Politically incorrect
The phrase "politically incorrect" may refer to:* Someone or something which does not meet a standard of political correctness* Politically Incorrect, a late-night U.S. political talk show* Politically Incorrect, a German political blog...
. Her contract was terminated in October 2000, although no official reason was given; when questioned, the station manager, Lucia Venter, claimed that "All the announcers receive positive and negative feedback. Allan does not necessarily get more than others."
Soon after establishing a radio show in Cape Town, she was contracted by Mweb to launch the website "CyberJani" with a weekly column, letters page and live chatline. David Bullard
David Bullard
David Bullard is a British-born and South African naturalized columnist, author and celebrity public speaker known for his controversial satire.-Early career:...
accused her of plagiarising his work in one edition of her MWeb column.
In February 2000, she gained media attention over her claims which she published in an article for Sunday Newspaper Rapport. She claimed that whilst working at journalist Cliff Saunders's London press agency in the early 1990s, she was used as an "unwitting spy" against Inkatha Freedom Party
Inkatha Freedom Party
The Inkatha Freedom Party is a political party in South Africa. Since its founding, it has been led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. It is currently the fourth largest party in the National Assembly of South Africa.-History:...
(IFP) and its leader and her close personal friendMangosuthu Buthelezi
Mangosuthu Buthelezi
Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi is a South African Zulu politician who founded the Inkatha Freedom Party in 1975 and continues to lead the party today.His praise name is Shenge.-Early life:...
for the state. Between 2000-2001, she was a speechwriter for Buthelezi.
2001-present US, freelance, memoirs
She relocated to the United States in 2001, where she has appeared on a number of radio shows. On 17 June 2004, Jani Allan appeared as the guest on the conspiracy theorist Jeff RenseJeff Rense
Jeff Rense is an American conspiracy theorist and radio talk-show host of the Jeff Rense Program, broadcast on US satellite radio via Republic Broadcasting Network and Internet radio....
's show. During the show, which had a listenership of 7 million, Allan accused the South African government of a genocidal campaign against white Afrikaners, citing South African Farm Murders and she encouraged Americans to sponsor white Afrikaner "refugees". She later became the regular Friday night weekly guest-commentator. In 2005, she made several appearances on the Republican radio show Flipside with Robby Noel. She also appeared on the Larry Pratt
Larry Pratt
Lawrence D. Pratt is the executive director of Gun Owners of America, a U.S.-based firearms lobbying group, and a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates.- Early life :...
show, discussing gun laws in place in South Africa.
Between 2004 and 2005 she contributed a number of columns to Christian and conservative, right-wing publications and sites such as the Jeff Rense
Jeff Rense
Jeff Rense is an American conspiracy theorist and radio talk-show host of the Jeff Rense Program, broadcast on US satellite radio via Republic Broadcasting Network and Internet radio....
website, AfricanCrisis, WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is an American web site that publishes news and associated content from a U.S. conservative perspective. It was founded in May 1997 by Joseph Farah with the stated intent of "exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power" and is headquartered in Washington, D.C.-History:In...
and she also published a number of columns on her personal blog. She has also been working as a published astrologer.
In 2006, Allan's controversial Terre'Blanche column was republished in the book A Century of Sundays: 100 Years of Breaking News in the Sunday Times. The book included details of the libel case and reproduced reportage about the case.
Following Terre'Blanche's murder in April 2010 she was hounded by the international press for an interview. Eventually she gave a full length interview to Britain's Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
. The interview was also republished in all Independent Online
Independent Online (South Africa)
Independent Online, or IOL is a news and information website based in South Africa. It is owned by the Independent News & Media organisation, which is the largest publisher of print material in South Africa....
titles across South Africa. She revealed in the interview that she was already writing her memoirs, with the working title of A Nettle That Must Be Grasped.
Mentioned books
- White Sunset - Project commenced in late 1980s, with more development in the early 1990s.
- Fast Cars to Ventersdorp - Satire developed in eary 1990s.
Filmography
| Documentary | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
| 1998 1998 in film -Events:* February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein.* Former child star Gary Coleman is charged with assaulting a young female bus driver at a California shopping mall.-Top grossing films:... |
Red Jacket Red Jacket (documentary) 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.-Synopsis:... |
Herself | Documentary-film on the artist, Vladimir Tretchikoff Vladimir Tretchikoff Vladimir Grigoryevich Tretchikoff was one of the most commercially successful artists of all time - his painting Chinese Girl is one of the best selling art prints ever.Tretchikoff was a... . |
| Portrayals | |||
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1992 1992 in film The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films:-Awards:Academy AwardsGolden Globe AwardsNational Film Awards... |
The Great Comedy Trek Pieter-Dirk Uys Pieter-Dirk Uys is a South African satirist, active as a performer, author, and social activist. He is the son of a Calvinist Afrikaner father and Berlin-born Jewish mother and had an NG Kerk upbringing. He began his dramatic career as a serious playwright, switching to one-man revues at the... |
Jani Allan | Joan Collins Joan Collins Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE , is an English actress, author, and columnist. Born in Paddington and raised in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. At the age of nine, she made her stage debut in A Doll's House and after attending school, she was classically trained as an actress... as Jani Allan in the Pieter-Dirk Uys Pieter-Dirk Uys Pieter-Dirk Uys is a South African satirist, active as a performer, author, and social activist. He is the son of a Calvinist Afrikaner father and Berlin-born Jewish mother and had an NG Kerk upbringing. He began his dramatic career as a serious playwright, switching to one-man revues at the... film. |
| 2002 2002 in film The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of... |
Get Carman: The trials of George Carman QC George Carman George Alfred Carman, QC , was a leading English barrister of the 1980s and 1990s. He first came to the attention of the general public in 1979, when he successfully defended the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe after he was charged with conspiracy to murder... |
Jani Allan | Sarah Berger as Jani Allan in the BBC BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff... film. |