There are screen idols who have aged before our eye without any make-up, prosthetics, salt-peppered wigs or camera tricks: Mzee Ojwang Hatari, Ian Mbugua, Jimmi Gathu, John Sibi-Okumu and Paul Onsongo.
Further a field, Denzel Washington turned 60, an age that is not visible as he plays the mysteriously battle hardened Robert McCall in the 2014 film, The Equalizer. Kenyans came to adore Denzel big time in the romantic 1992 film, Mississippi Masala.
The other is Leonardo DiCaprio. A kid born when he became a screen star as a starry-eyed 23-year-old rookie in the 1997 film, Titanic and the 2014 film, Wolf of Wall Street, could be clearing high school!
Their aging before our very eyes is testimony of their staying power, but also a testament that time is a good healer, but a poor beautician; that time flies and waits for no man (or woman) to rehearse her lines as faces get wrinkled.
Mzee Ojwang Hatari
He recently hit the headlines when he appeared frail on a hospital bed. Some Kenyans have broken their voices, got married, got kids who grew up and got married as Benson Wanjau played ‘Mzee Ojwang’ on KBC Channel One. The most trusted comedian, according to the 2008 Infotrack Harris survey, first graced the screen in the 1970s when Jomo Kenyatta was President and his career has revolved around Darubini from 1980 to 1985 when Vitimbi took over, until it was scrapped recently.
Before acting, he worked as a shop assistant at White Rose dry-cleaners where, because of his dressing, he was nicknamed Ojwang, a name that stuck, when the now 76-year-old got into acting, he told the defunct Passion magazine in 2012.
John Sibi-Okumu
His powerful baritone and mastery of English makes him one of the most recognisable faces and voices in Kenyan radio and television. He hosted the hard-hitting The Summit talk show on KTN, where he grilled the likes of retired President Daniel arap Moi, Robert Mugabe, Mwai Kibaki and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, from 1997. He was also the host of Zain Africa Challenge inter-university game show. ‘JSO,’ is one of the never fading faces of the Kenyan theatre, media and film. He began acting while at The Lenana School in 1968.
Besides acting in plays including Sophocles as King Oedipus, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Robert Mugabe in Fraser Grace’s Breakfast with Mugabe, he has also authored the plays Role Play and Kaggia and featured in the films Born Free (1975), We are the Children (1987) and The Constant Gardener (2005).
Ian Mbugua
The theatre and music teacher is the ‘harsh’ face of the television reality talent search show Tusker Project Fame where he’s the menacing ‘Judge Ian.’ While the mahewa generation are knowing Ian now, the veteran thespian began acting at The Phoenix Players in 1987 and gained continental stardom in the South African hit soap opera Egoli, The Place of Gold in 2000.
Catherine Kasavuli and Jimmy Gathu
This age-defying television queen has managed to wow fathers and their sons in different times for over two decades since her days at KBC, KTN and later Citizen.
The other is Gathu who stormed the public limelight as a continuity announcer in 1991. He later ventured into stage acting under the Mbalamwezi Players. Later on, he landed a job at KTN , the only private television station then, where he hosted the talent-nurturing show, Club Kiboko and five day music programs; Rap’Em, Kass Kass, Rastrat, Jam-a-Delic and Rhythmix. Kenyans have seen Gathu change from a fresh-faced TV presenter to the present rotund-faced ‘evergreen grandfather’ of Kenyan TV.
Morgan Freeman has always been old
Freeman has always been that wrinkled late bloomer actor who wowed film buffs with the 1994 offering, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus (2009) where he played Nelson Mandela. We can remember Sean Connery playing James Bond in the first 1962 film, Dr No film, but who recalls Freeman as a young actor?
