Meet the Hollywood actress who became a knitwit for Madiba

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If the name Carolyn Barkhuizen doesn’t immediately ring a bell, in the way that “Charlize Theron” does, it may be because fate works its changes in the strangest of ways. Carolyn, now known as Carolyn Steyn, is an accomplished actress who moved from her hometown of Joburg to find fame and fortune in Hollywood. 

She lived and worked in Los Angeles for 10 years, and was on the brink of her big breakthrough, about to star opposite Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple 2. Then came the call that her mother was gravely ill, and without hesitation, Carolyn flew back home to be at her bedside.

Her major-league movie career appeared to be over before it had even started, but for Carolyn, a brand-new role was waiting in the wings. In 2013, she was hosting a birthday lunch for her husband, the insurance entrepreneur Douw Steyn, and one of the guests was Zelda La Grange, who was for many years the personal assistant of Nelson Mandela.

From a casual chat on that day, came the inspiration for an idea that has since turned into a global phenomenon of goodwill and positive change: 67 Blankets for Mandela Day. Stitch by stitch, the campaign has generated warmth and hope for thousands of needy South Africans, and has become an annual record-breaking event that aims to keep the legacy of Madiba alive and well.

As the “Chief Knitwit” of 67 Blankets, Carolyn is a model of community spirit in action, in line with the Great Man’s famous mantra that “it always seems impossible until it’s done.” Carolyn sat down with Ruda in the BrightRock studio, to share her thoughts on acting, change, and her lively life with Douw.

Hello, and a very warm welcome to the Change Exchange. My guest this time, Carolyn Steyn – best known these days as the wife of billionaire, Douw Steyn, and as the originator and driver behind 67 Blankets.

The blanket lady.

The blanket lady. And we’ll talk a lot about that. You are so welcome, I’m glad to have you.

It’s lovely to be here, lovely to see you again. Looking magnificent.

Thank you, ma’am. You’re trained as an actress. And there, shortly after finishing varsity, you moved to America and you lived in LA for 10 years? How did that happen? Did you want to be an actress?

You know, I grew up … I was … I went to school at Jeppe High School for Girls – very shy, overweight, terrible acne, very … I mean, I just couldn’t really speak to people. So I always wanted to be in other people’s shoes. So I think that’s one of the reasons I so desperately wanted to be an actress, because it was easy to be up on a stage, away from the people, and …

Get into a different character?

Being somebody else. And I think a lot of actors are shy people, inherently. Having gone to drama school is probably one of the best things that I did in my life, because in brought me out of myself and it got me talking to people. Although I still … I kept very much to myself at university.

But it taught you skills, also?

Yes it did, which I’m using today. You know, my dream was to go to the Royal Shakespeare Company, to do Shakespeare, to become this …

Major actress …

This Helen Mirren …

Yes …

But it didn’t happen, but those skills that I learned at drama school has stood me in good stead for what I’m doing today, and that is working with 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day. So …

How did you end up in America?

Well … Love. A man. I met a film director who was out in South Africa and I went to interview him. I used to work at the SABC … He was, Jennifer O’Neal was the star in the movie, Sydney Lassick from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and I went to interview the actors and I interviewed him, and the next thing I found myself moving to Los Angeles. So always a man!

How did you experience that? The other side of the world? A young South African girl?

Ja, I think it was very exciting. Adapting to LA wasn’t particularly easy – I kept wanting to come home – certainly for the first year. It was only when I went to acting class and started integrating with actors in Los Angeles that I started to feel comfortable. And I was very fortunate to be in class with the likes of Kate Hudson, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeffrey Tambor, Doris Roberts – you know, people that were very much working actors and stars today, so …

And you worked as – what you call – a “jobbing actor”. How did that work? What does it mean?

I was a jobbing actor. I got a job here and I got a job there. I didn’t become a Charlize Theron, but things happen for a reason, I believe. I was cast in The Odd Couple 2, the film with Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau, and just before shooting, I got a call, how quickly can you get to South Africa? Because my mom was very ill, so I spoke to the director, Howie Deutch, I said my mother is very ill, and he said, Carolyn, go. I will always use you. So that one big chance of film, a great … Well, I don’t think … I’ve never seen the film – I’ve actually wanted to see the film – whether it changed my life in terms of being an actor, actress, I don’t know, but it was certainly a nice role.

And how did you handle giving up something like that? Something that you really wanted. It could be the next big thing in your life, at least. And now it was just …

I don’t think I would have had it any other way. You know, a friend of mine … A well-known actress, said how can you give this up to go and watch your mother die? This is your big ticket to film in Hollywood. But I’m very grateful for the fact that I was able to spend the last three months with my mom. Ja.

I also lost my mother in a similar way. So I know what it is like. Can I ask you what that meant in your life? I don’t mean just losing her, but being there, through that process?

I think it was a gift. To be able to be there for her in her last months, last days.

And one gets closer to people than ever before, because everything that’s not important falls away.

Also with my dad, you know, same thing. That time I was in Los Angeles and I was given a job as a producer on a TV series called, I think it was called Love Stories for NBC television, and I was in the job for two days, and then I got the call about my dad. So similarly, I came home to be with my father. So it was … I said goodbye to Hollywood. Because I feel it was so important for me to be with my parents when they passed, and I’m glad that I was present when they both passed.

And then, how did you build a life here again? You worked as an actress? You were in Poppie Nongena for a whole year?

I know, you know what, that was a role that changed my life in terms of being an actress. Marius Weyers was our director, Nomsa Nene played Poppie Nongena … We actually opened the production in Soweto at a time there were buses burning down the roads … I was the white girl in the Kombi going to … I was terrified, because I thought I’m playing this role of the madam in apartheid South Africa …

The stereotype.

Ja, and I thought I was going to be shot at.

What year are we talking about?

We talk about 84-ish? Ja. I had to carry a pass of permission to go into Soweto at the time, and I was so shocked at the reaction, because I was … You know, Pieter-Dirk Uys knows that kind of laughter. I mean, I really … It was a comedy. People found me very funny, because they would recognise this white madam.

The caricature.

Ja. And then we came to the Market Theatre, and then the audience was a white only audience. And I was waiting for my laughter, and there was nothing! Absolutely nothing. It was embarrassed silence. So I think that Poppie Nongena really opened my eyes to our politics, to what really was happening in our country. When I was at university I wasn’t one of those students that went on marches. I was busy learning my lines and I was too shy to really be with people. I wasn’t a political thinker. But I’ve become much more of an activist at this stage of my life.

It must have been an amazing exposure to all those different spaces. Because I think apartheid worked – it kept us apart. It kept us in separate silos. And for you as a white girl to enter this story and then to go and play in all these other places must have been amazing.

Absolutely. It was Lochner de Kock who played the other white character. So we toured all over South Africa with 12, 13 black actors. And we were allowed into places – Lochner and I – and the rest of the cast were not. So my eyes were opened to the way black people were living at that time. So it was a very, very interesting and eye-opening experience for me. And that was a year of my life, with Poppie Nongena.

And afterwards? Did you want to earn your living as an actress? Was that what you were thinking?

Ja. It’s the only thing I ever wanted. Since I was a little girl. I remember going to see Shirley Temple in the Good Ship Lollipop, and coming home – I think I was five years old – and coming home and saying to my father I want to be an actress. And he’d say, we’ll talk about it another time. And then when I wanted to study drama at university, the agreement was that I get a teaching qualification if I was going to follow this acting thing.

Nataniël said to me, it was obvious that I was going to be a musiekjuffrou.

I love Nataniël. He’s just brilliant.

And it’s very much the same thinking from his parents’ principles. And what happened after Poppie?

After Poppie …

As an actress?

I worked for PACT Drama for a number of years as a freelance, but … As a freelance, full time freelance for about five years, doing productions like Robin van der Merwe of Knysna Forest with Richard van der Westhuizen … All these people have gone on to have good careers. And other productions. Gosh.

You also presented on television then, and you got into radio? What did you like most? What do you like most?

Well, I love the theatre, but I’m not sure that I could go back to the theatre now.

It’s a rough life.

It’s a rough life. You have no social life. I respect – I take my hats off to the Fiona Ramseys of the world, because you give up a lot. And it has to be a passion, and I don’t believe that I’ve got that passion any longer. My passion is about the work that I’m doing today, which is amazing, because if you think back, that’s all I wanted. But I also think for me, it was quite a selfish thing – I wanted attention, I wanted to be loved, I wanted to not be me, and now I’m me and I’m doing work that I love, and in so doing, the Blanket Project – 67 Blankets – has definitely changed my life.

Take us back to the beginning? Zelda la Grange set you a challenge, hey?

Nelson Mandela

Ja, it was just after Madiba had passed away – it was my husband, Douw’s birthday and Zelda was there. We had a lunch – about 10 of us – and I was boasting about my domestic abilities of which I have none, and she said well, why don’t you make 67 blankets for Nelson Mandela Day? And I said sure, no problem, and then promptly it went out of my head, and my sister, Sharon, arrived on Christmas day with a bag of wool and a crochet hook, and the last time I had crocheted was many years ago when I was Jeppe High School for Girls where we were taught how to crochet. And I thought arthritis is setting in and I certainly cannot make 67 blankets on my own, I don’t have 67 friends, my sisters both said they would make a blanket. My friends … I don’t cook, I don’t knit – I’m too busy – all those friends are now making blankets, because that’s the only way they can get to see me. And so I created a group on Facebook called 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day – it’s not 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day South Africa – because we’re in so many countries around the world. So that’s how it started, and it started out as a little initiative with a very big heart, that’s become a movement.

How did that happen? Was there a moment where you thought this was getting much bigger than just me?

I think it kind of just organically exploded into something that I wasn’t expecting. I thought I want 67 Blankets. I’m going to hand them to Zelda and then I can go back to my pool and read my book and be a retired person, but that was not going to happen at all. In actual fact, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to get 67 blankets. I said to Douw, Baby, do you mind if I put on Facebook that you are prepared to donate R1 000 per blanket made and then we hand a cheque to the Nelson Mandela Foundation of R67 000 and then goodbye? Here, Zelda. Done it. I didn’t put that posting on Facebook – can you imagine? Because there are many, many, many thousands of blankets that have been made.

Just as well you didn’t make that pledge!

Ja.

As I say, was there a moment when someone in Australia reached out and said we have now put together a group or wherever else? It’s all over the world, now?

It is, ja. The most striking of late, is India. We entered the Guinness Book of World Records soon after this pledge, because blankets – everywhere I went, blankets would come towards me, and of course, Generations, the soap opera, they wove us into the script of Generations. With a viewership of 10 million a night, you can just imagine. So I do believe that Generations put us on the map. Having said that, the media have been so supportive, we’re not short of blanket coverage. Some people say there’s too much media exposure, and I say …

For a mass movement you can never …

It’s not a secret society. You can be a group of 10 people making blankets, and good for you if that’s what you want to do, but we have really made a mark. The Guinness Book of World Records we have entered – those pictures at the Union Buildings – I don’t know if you’ve seen them – a sea of blankets around Madiba as far as the eye can see in every direction. Blankets made with our own two hands, because Madiba said it is in your hands now. And Stuttaford … I have to say, Stuttaford Van Lines have transported every single blanket, made by Betty Boshoff in Bloemfontein and from all around – every corner – nook and cranny in South Africa to 67 Blanket Headquarters which is our garage. Thank goodness it is a very big garage … I think Madiba had a plan. And then to the Union Buildings, we label all our blankets – 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day – so that the recipient, even 10 years from now will know that Madiba is looking after me. And we …

How do you choose your recipients?

We’ve got on our website a beneficiary request form, people fill that form out, they send it to us at [email protected] and then we do our assessment and we pretty much have managed to distribute blankets in the past three years to I would say up to 30 000 people in South Africa.

It’s amazing. Congratulations. It’s a huge thing that you’ve done.

Coming back to India, they then beat our record, but by miles. We were so proud of our record being 3 377 square metres, and then three, four months later India, 11 148 square metres. But you know, South Africans love a challenge. So we rolled up our sleeves, I actually got prisoners involved as well, so we were endorsed by the National Commissioner Zack Modise, Minister Michael Masuta, Deputy Minister Thabang Makwetla …

So do we have prisoners at the moment, sitting and crocheting?

Correct. All around the country.

That’s a kind of counter-intuitive image.

It is amazing. We started out at Zonderwater Maximum Correctional Centre in Cullinan. And you know, there again, that’s a game changer and a life changing thing for me, because about 12 years ago I got a call to say, do you know that, my accountant – we won’t mention names – is in jail? I went, what? He’s in jail? It would be really nice if you went to visit him. And I went not a chance are these feet going to find themselves in a jail visiting someone that’s done something bad. Definitely not!

And now you find yourself in prisons very often?

I do. We spend a lot of time in jail, and I often think have engaged with a lot of people behind bars, that there but for the Grace of God go I, because I believe that anyone could end up in an orange uniform, or a blue uniform if you are a woman. Recently at … I think it was Durban Westville Prison? We launched, we discussed our plans for the Guinness World Record at Drakensville Correctional Centre last year April, 22, to mark 22 years of democracy. With the minister we went there to tell our ideas to the media. And I noticed on the program that it was just the minister, deputy minister, Carolyn Steyn et cetera speaking. And I said but we have to have one of the inmates talk about the project. You have to have somebody here that can talk about …

About why you’re there.

Exactly. There was a woman that got up on the stage, and she said my name is … I have served 12 years of a life sentence here for the murder of my husband. I want to thank my government for educating my children – the one is a doctor, the one is a scientist or whatever, but it was very impressive – and I want to thank Mrs Steyn for remembering the forgotten people, for giving us something to do with our hands to make us feel worthwhile, to be able to contribute to the society that we have wronged. It was so powerful, it was very beautiful. And a lot of prisoners, and I have to say prisoners because they are to me – they call them correctional centres, but whoo-hoo, not …

A bit orwellesque?

Ja. They talk about the fact that they’re knitting together their broken lives with this project. They’re knitting together broken trusts. With 67 Blankets they are finding their humanity again, and I’m quoting from someone. So I believe that the work that we’re doing in terms of rehabilitation, skills development … Giving people, forgotten people of the world – and some should be forgotten, make no mistake – but we’ve managed to take people out of gangs to join the project, because out of the 67 Blankets umbrella, they’ve got mathematics, science, poetry, dance, song, you know, along with crocheting, knitting broken live together.

That must be so rewarding for you.

It is. I’m very passionate about it. I’m very glad that I didn’t go to the Royal Shakespeare Company to act, because I feel that I’m making much more of a difference this way.

And in South Africa I think you can so easily be put in a box as the billionaire’s wife, while this is so specifically yours, and so huge.

I suppose so. I don’t really think of myself as such, because I do wake up with a purpose every day. I could have gotten 67 Blankets and … But the gift. The gift that Zelda gave me through Madiba has definitely changed my life. Sometimes I do ask myself why am I doing this? Going to Leeukop Correctional Centre, we had a blanket handover where the inmates were handing over blankets and I had to go to the toilet. And I walked there and I thought, uh oh … It’s really difficult to go into here. So I called my sister and I said can you just stand guard at the door? Because, let me tell you, it was not a kosher site. Why am I telling you this story?! I don’t know, but you hover, okay? You hover, and I go what am I doing here in the first place? I could be shopping, I could be on a beach, you know? But there again, when I hear about the difference that the project is making in the lives of inmates connecting with the outside world, changing the mind-set of some hardened men …

Then you know why.

Then I know why. And Graca Machel said to me – me dear, you do realise that this is your calling.

Wow, and one cannot again say no. Tell me, you said that Douw was at your side when you started this. You were briefly married to Douw in 2003. What brought you together? What attracted you?

Gosh, when I first met Douw, he said to me I’m going to marry you. We were dancing … Andrew Lloyd Webber. We both love Andrew Lloyd Webber. And Douw can’t sing, I can’t sing, but we sing at the top of our lungs to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Love, love changes everything. Dara, da. And he said I’m going to marry you. And I said in your dreams, darling. Because I must tell you, I never met these kind of people before – business people. You know, I was always with artists, actors, gay people … Not to say that every actor is gay, but a lot of, you know …

Alternative?

Yes. And now I’m with a bunch of Afrikaans men involved in insurance, and that night, I remember really letting my hair down, because I thought I’m never going to see this bunch of Afrikaners ever again in my life. And now look. Married. Once? Twice to the same person. Carolyn Steyn-Steyn. What attracted to me? I think that … I don’t know. I think he was just so rich? No, no … Just joking! I did try very hard to run away from him, but I think I was a challenge for Douw and he … uhm …

Persevered?

We have this umbilical cord that could never be cut, all over those years. We were married for five months to begin with, and I’m like, he’s a very difficult man. I can’t. I can’t. He’s a very difficult man. Not easy. But I love a challenge.

So what made you decide to try it for a second time?

During those years that we were apart, we were never really quite apart. I could be on a date with someone, and my phone would ring. And if it was Douw, I would say I’ve got to go. I’m so sorry, I’ve got a crisis. And then I’d rush off to be with Douw, whether it be at Saxon, which was where he was living at the time, or whether it be in London, or wherever he was in the world, I would be on the next plane. I could never get him out of my system and I tried so hard! But he’s a fascinating man, he’s a visionary. He’s amazing. He’s an incredible man.

And you share that energy to get something done.

Douw has taught me a lot of things, and the one is go big or go home. So it’s not about any more about making 67 Blankets. It is about getting 67 countries involved in the project. And next year, the project that we’re aiming for is to create the largest portrait blanket in the world of the face of Madiba and that will be our tribute to Madiba in his 100th year. So every blanket measures 160 by 160 centimetres, every blanket will be a pixel in the very big picture of Madiba’s face, which will cover an area of 4 500 square metres. You’ll only be able to see Madiba’s face from the sky, and we’re working on out of space. So that will happen in April 24 next year, to mark 24 years of our democracy.

So I assume you’ve beaten the Indians again?

We did! Absolutely. You know, people say don’t try and beat India in the world record, because they’ve got billions. We’ve got millions. But I said a billion people are not making blankets. So we rallied our children in the schools. Jeppe High School for Girls. I tell you, my school. They made way over 670 blankets last year and the year previous. Many schools came on board. Church groups, the Department of Correctional Services, the inmates, the officials, they worked together and they …

So it really is a mass movement, now?

The inmates and the officials contributed over 5 000 blankets last year to the Guinness World Record. And our networks for Madiba all around the country contributed … So altogether last year we laid out 17 000 blankets at Drakenstein Correctional Centre in the Western Cape, which is the place where Madiba set his first steps to freedom. So it was a massive statement. You know, it took two days and two nights to put those blankets together, sew them all together in the wind and the rain and the mud, but you know what? I do come from a school of the show must go on, and it did. We beat India, and then I went to the area commissioner at Drakenstein and said, area commissioner, do you have laundry facilities? Yes we do. I actually called Bidvest in the middle of the night to ask them if they wanted to wash the largest blanket in the world, and I never heard back from them. But they sent the blankets to all the correctional centres around the Western Cape, washed the blankets, dried the blankets, sent them up to 67 Blankets headquarters and we distributed the 17 000 blankets. Made with love by South Africans and …

Carolyn, I can only say hats off and all the very, very, very best.

Thank you.

May you get your 67 countries by next year.

Baie dankie, hoor!

Baie voorspoed. En dankie vir die kuier.

Thank you.

Until the next time. And knit a blanket in between. Bye!

  • This interview first appeared on the Change Exchange, an online platform by BrightRock, provider of the first-ever life insurance that changes as your life changes. The opinions expressed in this piece are the writer’s own and don’t necessarily reflect the views of BrightRock.
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