Obituary: Peggy Phango

PEGGY PHANGO was the talented South African who created the role of Rose, the buxom, good-natured tap dancing student in Richard Harris's popular play Stepping Out.

She first appeared on the London stage as the female lead in the musical King Kong at the Prince's Theatre (now the Shaftesbury) in 1961. Based on the true story of a boxing champion who became a folk hero to the shanty townships of South Africa, King Kong brought something new to the West End, its surging jazz-influenced rhythms, African harmonies and shanty- town settings, plus the raw energy of its dancing, making it a considerable hit.

When it closed, many of its cast decided to remain in Britain. Though Phango was strongly committed to the cause of anti-apartheid, she realised that her chances of continued show business success would be far greater if she too remained in this country, though she continued to be outspoken and appeared in two notable television productions about conditions in her native country, Victims of Apartheid and Death is Part of the Process.

Born in Orlando, Transvaal, in 1928, she became a nurse on leaving school, but started singing in the local jazz clubs. She was spotted by the promoter Albert Herbert, who gave her a role in a touring revue, African Jazz and Variety.

In 1959 she was given her major break when the folk singer Miriam Makeba, who had starred in the original African production of King Kong, went to America to pursue her career and Phango replaced her in a touring version as Joyce, the glamorous "shebeen queen", the same part she played when the company came to London.

When plans to take the show to Broadway after the London run failed to materialise, Phango and three other members of the cast formed a vocal quartet, the Velvettes. It had considerable success, but while they were appearing with Alexis Korner and his band Blues Incorporated, Phango and Korner's pianist fell in love and the couple decided that Phango should devise a solo act, with which she toured the Northern club circuit, her material including songs from King Kong plus traditional Xhosa songs.

Phango was also pursuing a stage career, and made her straight acting debut in England in a Cheltenham production of Kaufman and Hart's You Can't Take It With You. She followed this with roles in Peter Hall's controversial Covent Garden production of Moses and Aaron, Arthur Miller's The Crucible in Birmingham, a German touring production of Porgy and Bess, the London revival of Show Boat, which featured Cleo Laine as Julie, William Douglas Home's play about Napoleon, Betzi, and the revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, starring Elizabeth Taylor.

She played Gora in the Traverse production of Medea in Edinburgh and at the Riverside, then in 1984 had her finest West End role since King Kong when she was cast as Rose in Stepping Out. After the London run, she toured the Far East and the Gulf in Derek Nimmo's production of the same show.

Between shows and television appearances, Phango continued her singing career, touring with the South African Dodu Pukwana and the band Zila and occasionally with Miriam Makeba. In the 1988 London revival of South Pacific, Phango took the small part of Bloody Mary's assistant because she was offered the chance to understudy Beatrice Reading as Bloody Mary, and eventually she took over the role.

Her television work included such popular series as EastEnders, The Bill and Brookside, but she was particularly proud of two shows which contributed towards public understanding of conditions in South Africa, Victims of Apartheid and Death is a Part of the Process. The latter, a fine 1983 adaptation by Alan Plater of Hilda Bernstein's powerful and moving novel based on the activities of the saboteur group of the early sixties, Unkhonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), has sadly never been repeated by the BBC.

One of Phango's more recent television appearances, in Lynda La Plante's Trial and Retribution, as the meals-on-wheels lady who delivers to an estate where a child is kidnapped, was repeated a few weeks ago, and she recently completed an episode of the series A Force that has yet to be seen.

Peggy Phango, actress: born Orlando, South Africa 28 December 1928; married 1965 Johnny Parker (two daughters, one stepson, one stepdaughter); died London 7 August 1998.