Annabel Linder – you just can’t keep a good entertainer down

SUZANNE BELLING
PHOTOGRAPH SUPPLIED

Labelled a “cabaret extravaganza”, the actual show is making a comeback after its successful run last year.

“The show incorporates the music of the great composers (most of them Jewish) like George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Burt Bacharach, Stephen Sondheim and also Hoagy Carmichael,” Annabel says.

Ageless in appearance, with not a line on this grandmother’s face, Annabel is happy that Sam is part of the show.

“He is not only a musician, but a composer, instrumentalist and writer of music,” she pointed out.

“Two’s Company…” will be staged on weekends only from this weekend till March 8, opening with a Valentine’s Night special dinner for those who celebrate this romantic day.

“We don’t do Friday nights as the show attracts mainly Jewish audiences,” Annabel, says. This award-winning actress, comedienne and singer, plans to include a tribute to the late comedienne Joan Rivers “whom I adored”.

Born in Durban to Orthodox Jewish parents, Gerald and Bessie Linder, she quips that her real family name was Kirschenstein, “which my paternal grandfather changed to Linder when he arrived in England from Lithuania. I am glad he did – can you imagine having a stage name like Annabel Kirschenstein?

“This is not a myth. My nephew, who is into family trees, checked in the cemetery and found ‘Harry Linder, formerly Kirschenstein’ engraved on the tombstone.”

From an early age, Annabel was always chosen for school productions, displaying her acting, singing and dancing talents.

“My mentor was Joan Brickhill, who sadly passed away last year.” Joan was known as the queen of musical extravaganzas in South Africa.

“She was in my life from the age of 12.  She was literally part of my family. When Sam and I were planning our wedding in the garden of my Parkmore home nearly 21 years ago, she told me we couldn’t get married in a ‘winter’ garden and went down on her hands and knees transforming it.

“She gave me the dress she wore when she was nominated for a Tony.”

Annabel herself has been nominated 12 times for awards in theatre, TV and radio, winning five of them – for “Chicago”, “Heroes”, “Tale of an Allergist’s Wife”, “Rose “, the story of an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor, and for “Torch Song Trilogy”.

She is the only woman comedienne on the cabaret circuit. “It pays better and is now referred to as corporate cabaret. A gig (in theatre lingo) is known as ‘G-d is Good’.

Annabel recently had a nine-month stint on ChaiFM. “I enjoyed meeting all the personalities in various spheres.” She struck up a rapport with Rebbetzen Mashi Lipskar, whom she admires and who taught her a great deal about Yiddishkeit.

Annabel has started her memoirs, after a lifetime in the entertainment business.

Her more accomplishments are a full-length feature film “Nothing for Mahala” and filming the sitcom “Those Who Can’t”, for Harriet Gavshon’s Quizzical Pictures.