March 19, 2012: It’s the must-read true life crime drama of the year, following hot on the heels of titles like Killing Kebble. Ridge editor Garth Johnstone spoke to the authors of Lolly Jackson: When Fantasy Becomes Reality, and found out a whole lot more about the life and times of Jackson – business mogul and South Africa’s legendary “King of Teaze”.
(With authors Sean Newman, Peter Piegl and Karyn Maughan)
Garth: Where was the starting point for the book?
Sean Newman (former Jackson employee): “Karyn and I had spoken about it. We were both intimately involved in this story. Everywhere we went people wanted to know about it. With a story like the Lolly Jackson murder and the Teazers empire people really want to know. I find with this story there’s not much middle ground. People either like you or they hate you.
“For me, personally, I felt it was really important that people saw there was an end point to my association with the Teazers brand.”
Karyn Maughan (legal reporter): “It snowballed. The story was so difficult to contain. Everyone was scrambling for the Teazers empire after Lolly’s death. The drama, the tax issues, the murders, the story just never seemed to end.”
Sean Newman: “We were like, can someone please take a breather so that we can finish the book.” (Referring to the killings of Cyril Beeka, Ian Jordaan and Mark Andrews).
Garth: Was there a point where you had to draw the line?
Peter Piegl (editor): “As we were signing the publishing contract, news came through that Lolly Jackson’s lawyer Ian Jordaan had been murdered. Eventually our publishers did say, that’s it. This is the cut-off, or you’re never going to be done.”
Garth: Sean, were there times when you wondered why you’d taken on this complicated saga?
Sean Newman: “You doubt yourself at times. But having said that, I’m pretty happy with the end product. It’s published and I’m happy, we have to live with what we’ve got.”
Karyn Maughan: “If one or two people hadn’t been upset after we’d unpacked this complicated mess, I would have been worried.”
Garth: Peter, where did you come in?
Peter Piegl: “I’d just resigned from Playboy. I left with no definitive idea of what I was going to do. Sean, whom I didn’t know from a bar of soap, contacted me on Facebook. Did I want to get involved? Hell, yeah, what a story. Sean was the involved, emotional voice, Karyn was the investigative expert, there were a couple of distinct voices. Eventually we decided we had to separate them.”
Garth: Did you guys see the dollar signs?
All together: “It’s not like the States where you sign a publishing deal and make massive sales. Here, a few thousand sales and you have a bestseller. We really wanted to do this project because we believed in it.”
Karyn Maughan: “We were immersed in this whole saga for so long. Me as a legal reporter, Sean because he was right in the middle of it. We had to do it.”
Sean Newman: “It was therapy for me. Peter encouraged me to get things out there. And as we wrote it was good for me, I had to get it out. My wife, who had battled through this whole thing, read the book for two days solid and then told me that at last she knew what I had gone through. She’s not even a reader, and she sat there for two days churning through it, and finally understood the hard time that I had had dealing with these people.”
Garth: Sean, did you ever wonder why you were involved in the first place?
Sean Newman: “Yes there were times when I wanted to say, ‘Stop the bus!’”
Garth: Why were you even there? Why did Lolly employ you?
Sean Newman: “I was unemployed. I really needed it, I wanted to learn from Lolly. He was a man who had revolutionised every business he had ever been involved in. He was cheap, he paid me very little, but was a business legend and I wanted to learn. He saw something in me and gave me a chance.”
Garth: Is this story still going on?
All together: “It will never end. The story is still evolving. These characters are all linked and someone is pulling the strings. It’s been nearly two years now, they’re still nowhere near solving this case.”
Garth: Did “George Smith” (aka George Louka) kill Lolly Jackson?
All together: “Absolutely not. This was a precision killing. It’s extremely unlikely that Smith could have overpowered a man like Lolly Jackson on his own; Lolly would have fought back. (Former crime intelligence boss) Joey Mabasa claims George Smith phoned him to admit to the killing in a “confession call”, but there’s no corroboration. George Smith is still in Cyprus two years later, and we’re no closer to solving the murder. Perhaps we’ll never know.”
Garth: What’s the message of this book at the end of the day?
Sean Newman: “Lolly Jackson was a good guy, and he was a bad guy. He died an extremely lonely man. Clearly money doesn’t buy you happiness.”
Peter Piegl: “But there’s another message in there. If you really want something and are willing to take a chance, go after what you want. Sean wanted to get in on the business and learn from Lolly, and that’s what he did.”
Karyn Maughan: “Perhaps it’s that there are consequences for everything. There are rules which apply to everybody. Doesn’t matter how big you are, there’s always going to be a meaner and nastier shark in the water.”
** Of local interest, Pieter Piegl and Sean Newman spent two weeks deep into the writing process hidden away in a flat on Umhlanga Ridge “woodshedding” … grinding out the nuts and bolts and churning through a huge amount of the hard slog and detail to try to wrap up the book. They were offered the accommodation by Lolly Jackson’s partner in the Durban Teazers branch, Shaun Russouw. “We went a bit stir crazy in there, writing stuff all over the place with crayons, but we got a huge amount done, which was significant in the whole writing process.”