Johannesburg, Gauteng

Rand Stadium is a stadium in Rosettenville, a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is set to be utilized as a training field for teams... participating in the 2010 FIFA World Cup after being completely rebuilt and reopened in August 2008. Rand Stadium was constructed between 1949 to 1951 at a cost of £60,000 with a capacity of 15,000. Over time extensive renovations have been carried out, the first between 1964 and 1965 in which facilities were added and the second in 1976 that saw the installation of floodlighting. The stadium was adjudged to need serious improvements and it was decide that it would be demolished in 2006. The new Rand Stadium was rebuilt as an all-seater stadium and would retain its old scoreboard for heritage purposes.
more

Bidvest Stadium, is a multi-use stadium in the Braampark suburb of Johannesburg in South Africa. The stadium has a dedicated field to host football... matches with a capacity of 5,000 seats, and other fields to host other sports disciplines. The exact location of the stadium, is at the Wits University campus, and it is currently used as the preferred home ground of Bidvest Wits in the Premier Soccer League. During the 2010 FIFA World Cup, it was also used as a training venue by the Dutch national football team.
more

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a... fully representative democratic election. Before being elected President, Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist, and the leader and co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress . In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela went on to serve 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to the establishment of democracy in 1994. As President, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa. In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata . Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades.
more

Hugo Wallace Weaving is an English-Australian film and stage actor and voice artist. He is best known for his roles as Tick in The Adventures of... Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy, Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, "V" in V for Vendetta and performances in numerous Australian character dramas. Weaving was born at the University Teaching Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria, to English parents Anne , a tour guide and former teacher, and Wallace Weaving, a seismologist. His maternal grandmother was Belgian. A year after his birth, his family returned to England, living in Bedford and Brighton before moving to Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, Johannesburg in South Africa, and then returning to England again. While in England, he attended the independent boarding school Queen Elizabeth's Hospital. His family moved back to Australia in 1976, where he attended another private school, Sydney's Knox Grammar School. He later graduated from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1981.
more

Carly Smithson is an Irish soul/pop rock singer-songwriter and actress who was the sixth place finalist on the seventh season of American Idol. In... 2001, Smithson released her first studio album for MCA Records called Ultimate High. Smithson was dropped from the record label in 2002. After being introduced to record producer Ben Moody in early 2009, plans for Smithson's post-Idol solo album were scrapped and instead she is now the lead singer of the gothic metal band We Are the Fallen. Smithson was born in Dublin, Ireland, to her parents Marie Murray and Luke Hennessy. After living 6 months in Dublin, Smithson and her parents moved to Johannesburg, South Africa. She lived there until they moved back to Dublin when she was 4 years old. Smithson began singing around the age of 4 and has also had some experience with acting. She was featured in advertisements for Denny's Sausage for three years, starting at the age of five. In 1990, Smithson played Young Marianne in Fools of Fortune. Two years later, in 1992, she joined the cast of Les Misérables and starred as Little Cosette in Ireland.
more

Gillian Larson is a former contestant on the reality television show Survivor: Gabon.

Sir Philip St. John Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was a South African-born British actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage... actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films. He frequently portrayed suave villains or morally ambiguous characters, such as Murdstone in David Copperfield and Sir Guy of Gisbourne in The Adventures of Robin Hood . His most famous role, however, was heroic—that of Sherlock Holmes in fourteen Hollywood films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series. His later career included Broadway and television work; he received a Tony Award in 1948 as Best Actor in a Play. He was born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone in Johannesburg, South African Republic, to English parents Edgar Philip Rathbone, a mining engineer and scion of the Liverpool Rathbone family, and Anna Barbara née George, a violinist. He had two older half brothers Harold and Horace as well as two younger siblings, Beatrice and John.
more

David John "Dave" Matthews is a South African-American musician and actor, best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave... Matthews Band. He performs mainly with acoustic guitar and favors rhythm rather than solos in his playing. David John Matthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, the third of four children of parents John and Valerie Matthews. At two years old, Matthews' family moved to Yorktown Heights in Westchester County, New York, where his father, a physicist, started working for IBM. In 1974, the family moved to Cambridge, England, for a year before returning to New York, where his father died from lung cancer in 1977. Biographer Nevin Martell argues that Dave's father's death may be an impetus for his "carpe diem" lyrics. At some point while residing in New York, Matthews attended his first concert, when his mother took him to a performance by Pete Seeger. The family moved back to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1977. Upon Matthews' graduation from St Stithians College high school in 1985, he was faced with conscription into the South African military just as civil disobedience to the practice was becoming widespread.
more

Dame Janet Suzman, DBE is a South African-born-British actress and director. Janet Suzman was born in Johannesburg to a Jewish family, the daughter... of Betty and Saul Suzman, a wealthy importer of tobacco. Her grandfather, Max Sonnenberg, was a member of the South African parliament, and she is also a niece of civil rights/anti-apartheid campaigner, Helen Suzman. Suzman was educated at the independent school Kingsmead College in Johannesburg, and at the University of the Witwatersrand where she studied English and French. She moved to London in 1959. After training for the stage at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Suzman made her debut as Liz in Billy Liar at the Tower Theatre, Ipswich in 1962. She then became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 and started her career there as Joan of Arc in The Wars of the Roses .
more

Theodore Ernest "Ernie" Els is a South African professional golfer, who has been one of the top professional players in the world since the... mid-1990s. A former World No. 1, he is known as "The Big Easy" due to his imposing physical stature along with his fluid, seemingly effortless golf swing. Among his numerous victories are three major championships: the U.S. Open in 1994 at the Oakmont Country Club and 1997 at the Congressional Country Club, and The Open Championship in 2002 at Muirfield. Other highlights in Els' career include topping the 2003 and 2004 European Tour Order of Merit , and winning the World Match Play Championship a record seven times. He was the leading career money winner on the European Tour until overtaken by Lee Westwood in 2011, and was the first member of the tour to earn over 25 million Euros from European Tour events. He has held the number one spot in the Official World Golf Rankings and holds the record for weeks ranked in the top ten with over 780.
more

Stephen John "Steve" Nash, OC, OBC is a South African-born Canadian professional basketball player who plays point guard for the Phoenix Suns of the... National Basketball Association . Nash enjoyed a successful high-school basketball career, and he was eventually given a scholarship by Santa Clara University. In his four seasons with the Broncos, the team made three NCAA Tournament appearances, and Nash was twice named the West Coast Conference Player of the Year. After graduating from Santa Clara as the team's all-time leader in assists, Nash entered the 1996 NBA Draft and was selected as the 15th pick by the Phoenix Suns. He made a minimal impact, and was traded to the Dallas Mavericks in 1998. By his third season with the Mavericks, he was voted into his first NBA All-Star Game and had earned his first All-NBA selection. Together with Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Finley, Nash led the Mavericks to the Western Conference Finals the following season. However, he became a free agent after the 2003–04 season and returned to the Phoenix Suns.
more

Gary Player DMS; OIG is a South African professional golfer and widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of golf. Over his... career, Player accumulated an impressive nine major championship and six Champions Tour major championship victories, as well as three Senior Open Championships. At the age 29, Player won the 1965 U.S. Open and became the only non-American to win all four majors, known as the career Grand Slam. Player became only the third golfer in history to win the Grand Slam, following Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen. Since then, only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have won the Grand Slam. Player has won 165 tournaments on six continents over six decades and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974. Player was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has logged more than 25 million kilometers in travel, which is more than any other athlete. Nicknamed the Black Knight, Mr. Fitness, and the International Ambassador of Golf, Player is also a renowned golf course architect with more than 325 design projects on 5 continents throughout the world. He has also authored or co-written 36 golf books.
more