Thelma Challis-Chandler was 18 years old when her life took an unexpected turn towards fame. Nicola Jenvey had high tea with a woman who stills attracts attention when she enters a room.
The young Miss Hayward had trained as a secretary and was working for a Johannesburg lawyer in 1947 when she was approached with an offer of three times her salary (sight unseen) to work as an in-house fashion model for the South African Fashion House.
The beautiful, dynamic teenager did not hesitate and a month later she was entered into and won the Miss Transvaal Queen of Industry pageant. The next round saw her competing in Durban where she was runner-up, but her glimpse of fame was only just beginning.
Thelma was offered the opportunity to meet the 1940s Hollywood heart-throb Tyrone Power, a man renowned for his dark, classically-handsome looks that made him a matinee idol from this first film appearance. She was fetched from her Johannesburg home in a limousine and taken to the Lutjies Langham Hotel where Power was staying in the famed Aga Khan suite – and opened the door personally to an adoring Thelma. Her one regret about that night was the condition that she could not take photographs.
Passionate
Already passionate about the theatre, specifically vaudeville, Thelma’s next brush with the international film world was in 1949 when she doubled for English actress and sex symbol Diana Dors in the movie Diamond City. Dors was committed to another filming another large-budget film and it was not feasible for her to travel to Kimberley for the month-long shooting time required for those scenes set in the diamond city.
That same year Thelma was holidaying in Margate and entered the Miss Hibiscus pageant, taking the runner-up position in the competition, but walking away with a far greater prize – the love of her life. She met Rodger Challis-Chandler on the last night of her holiday and the couple spent the whole night falling in love.
They were engaged four months later and married nine months after meeting, beginning a new chapter in Thelma’s life. Her life-long passion for fast cars was also honed at this time with the couple racing MG TCs around Grand Central Track (now Kyalami).
Physio-technologist
By 1951 the Challis-Chandlers had moved to Durban and Thelma had trained as a physio-technologist, offering exercise classes similar to today’s Pilates from her Westville home. She was also working as an in-house model for John Orr’s, but loved nothing more than having the opportunity to accompany lonely Berea housewives or retired women to the library or shopping.
However, Thelma also gained membership of the world’s most difficult club, having given birth to her first child as a stillborn and then losing one of her daughters in a car accident when Beverley-Anne was only 25 years. Her beloved Rodger died 25 years ago, thus leaving her widowed relatively young.
Today Thelma has travelled extensively with her fondest memories being time spent in India and figuratively has Rodger by her side, using his walking stick as her aid. She loves people, but vehemently believes that everyone can and should make their own happiness in life.
She is blessed with four grandchildren Clayton, Blake, Courtney and Paige and eagerly awaits the day she welcomes into the world the next generation. However, she has also found companionship in Basil, another resident of her Umhlanga complex.
“I have had a wonderful, blessed life and the lessons I pass on to anyone coming after me is to love the Lord dearly and then live life with honesty and loyalty,” she concludes.