17/08/2026
HE MADE SOUTH AFRICA LAUGH FOR 50 YEARS 🇿🇦🎬😂
In Bloemfontein, a boy and his brother used to film themselves playing pranks on their grandmother. Tomato sauce on the foot. Screaming like a wounded animal. The grandmother panicking every time. The boys laughing every time. Nobody in that house knew they were watching the beginning of the longest comedy career in SA history. 😅
Born on 21 May 1951 in Vereeniging, the 75-year-old Leon Ernest Schuster went to Hoërskool Jim Fouché in Bloemfontein and then studied for a BA degree at the University of the Orange Free State — where he also played rugby for the first team. He went back to Jim Fouché for 2 years as a teacher before joining the SABC. At the SABC, he created the Afrikaans radio series Vrypostige Mikrofoon with Fanus Rautenbach — disguising his voice and playing phone pranks on people who had no idea they were on air. That show was the seed of everything that followed. 🎙️
In 1982, Decibel Records asked him to record a sports album. He did. It sold 10,000 copies. The music kept coming — Hier Kom Die Bokke won the FNB SAMA Award for Biggest Selling CD of 1995. Gatvol in Paradise sold 125,000 copies. His film career started with You Must Be Joking! — a candid camera film made with Johan Scholtz and Elmo de Witt that South Africa loved immediately.
A sequel followed. Then Mr. Bones in 2001 — the highest-grossing South African film at the time, earning over R33 million at the box office. Then Mama Jack in 2005. Then Yankee Zulu. Mr. Bones 2. Oh Schuks… I'm Gatvol. Schuks! Pay Back the Money. Mr. Bones 3: Son of Bones. 🎬
In June 2020, Showmax removed more than 6 of his films from its platform — citing content concerns about some of the racial humour in his older work. The removal sparked a national debate about comedy, transformation and what South Africa chooses to remember.
He was married to Lalie Schuster until their divorce in 1999. He has 2 children. He has kept his private life away from cameras for most of his adult life — perhaps the one place in his world where there are no hidden cameras watching.
75years old. 50 years of making South Africa laugh. No one has done it longer. 👑
27/10/2020