Des and Dawn – worthy doyens of SA showbiz

SUZANNE BELLING

PHOTOGRAPH: ZOOM PHOTOGRAPHY

“We are still the flower children of the sixties,” Dawn said during an interview in their Parktown North home following their bumper party in the form of a soiree hosted by friend Dorianne Weil (Dr D) on Saturday night. This was directly after the 11^th annual Naledi Awards, of which Dawn is executive director and Des is a board member, “to honour excellence in South African theatre”.

“Theatre tells the story of our lives. Without it the soul of the nation will die,” is the opinion of this warm couple.

Dawn (née Silver) was born in Durban and Des in Johannesburg. She came from a family of seven children (“I was the middle one and had to work harder to be noticed as middle children do”) and Des was an only child. They met at the University of the Witwatersrand, where Dawn graduated with a degree in fine arts and Des began studying law.

“But I had difficulty in staying awake in class and my prof asked why I kept falling asleep,” said Des. “I told him it was because I sang at night – folk songs in a coffee place. He then told me he thought that was a good career choice, so that is what I did.”

Dawn continued her studies in fine arts at Urbino in Italy and in Salzburg. Their joint career made its debut at the Troubadour in Johannesburg in 1965. Des sang in “The Vagabond King” and then made his hit record “Die Gezoem van die Bye”, the first song in Afrikaans to top the Springbok Hit Parade.

The couple toured South Africa and the former Rhodesia in a caravan in a show entitled “Folk on Trek”. They lived in a four-storey home in Houghton, where they held Sunday soirees for 25 years. “Our performers included people like Johnny Clegg and Tessa Ziegler.”

“Then,” said Dawn, “we felt we wanted to do something towards getting rid of apartheid,” which they did with the production of Godspell. It played for five months in Maseru to predominantly South African weekend audiences. Godspell was termed blasphemous and a smokescreen for allowing mixed races to appear on stage together. It went to court. The Lindbergs won. The first multiracial cast performed live in this country!

The next time the Lindbergs landed up in court was with “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”, initially banned because of the sexual connotations in the title. They again won the case.

Speaking of censorship, Des got away with a mammoth victory over the SABC with his hit “The Seagull’s Name was Nelson”, which they didn’t realise was a reference to Nelson Mandela.

“On a work level our greatest accomplishments were the caravan, Godspell, The Seagull’s Name was Nelson and the Naledi Awards.

“Family wise is our marriage, our two sons Joshua and Adam and our granddaughters Zaria and Shia,” said Dawn.

Children have always meant a lot to the Lindbergs. “Our bestsellers were our children’s songs “Unicorns, Spiders and Dragons Tales” and “How Did I Begin?” (with Gill Katz), the latter teaching children from an early age about the birds and the bees.

“We are partners, and partners in show business, and also best friends,” said Dawn, while Des revealed that he has written a love song for his wife for the first time, which will be released at a later date.

With the interview coinciding with Yom Ha’atzmaut, Des recalled how he was called regularly to blow the shofar at the official Yom Hazikaron ceremonies in Johannesburg in former years. When he pointed out to the organising body, the SA Zionist Federation, that he was not Jewish, they made him an “honourary Jew”.