Wale Ogunyemi
Chief Wale Ogunyemi, OFR (12 August
1939–December 2001) was a Nigerian veteran seasoned dramatist, film
actor, prolific playwright and Yoruba language scholar[2]
Early life
He was born in August 1939 at
Igbajo, a city in Osun State,
southwestern Nigeria.[3] He attended the University of Ibadan in 1967 for a year course in drama, the same year he was appointed as a research assistant at
Ibadan Institute of African Studies where he later retired.[4][5][6]
Career
He began his acting career as a
seasonal actor with the new western Nigerian television service in the early
1960s.[7] He later worked with professor Wole
Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate and became a
foundation member of Soyinka Orisun Theatre.[8] His credible performance made him a choice for the role he
played as "The bale" in The Lion and the Jewel[9] and Dende in Kongi's
Harvest by professor Wole Soyinka.[10] He also featured in The Beatification Of Area Boy, a
play by Wole Soyinka premiered at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1995.[11] He had written and co-scripted several drama before his
death in December 2001.[12][13]
Filmography
- The Lion and the Jewel
- Kongi's Harvest
- Sango (1997)
- The Beatification Of Area Boy[14][15]
- The Ijaye War (1970)[16]
- Kiriji (1976)[17]
- The Divorce (1975)[18]
- Aare Akogun (1968) and Everyman *Eniyan, published in 1987)
- Langbodo (1979)[19]
Awards
- Member of the Order of the Niger awarded in 1982 by the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
- Majeobaje of Okuku, a chieftaincy title conferred on him by the Olokuku of Okukuland[20]
References
·
"Set to
battle demons on mount Langbodo". The Punch - Nigeria's Most
Widely Read Newspaper. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
· Black African
Literature in English, 1997-1999. google.nl. Retrieved 18 January
2015.
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