A FAIRY STORY WRESTLING CAREER

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 173, 25 July 1939, Page 10

A FAIRY STORY WRESTLING CAREER

VAN DER WALT, SOUTH AFRICA

TRAMWAYMAN WHO BECAME THE “ MASKED MARVEL ”

INCOME ROSE TO AN AVERAGE OF £3OOO A YEAR

John van der Walt’s career is one of the most remarkable fairy stories built on real-life facts, writes John Sacks in the Rand Daily Mail. He is the Cinderella-man of South African sport, with that astute, cigar-chewing Henry Irslinger as his particular good fairy, and a multitude of fervid, frenzied, feverish fans in every city, in every dorp and in almost every backveld farm in the country, as his Prince Charming. They have taken him to their hearts with a loyalty that knows no wavering. Hidden In a Mask. I have known Van der Walt since the day Henry Irslinger brought him into the Rand Daily Mail offices, years ago, sweltering inside a mask. But success hasn’t spoilt him in the sense that he is still the modest, likeable fellow he was in those days. The publicity and the limelight haven’t dried out his own inherent qualities as a man, and that no doubt accounts for his almost incredible popularity. Van der Walt was just a cheerful, curly-headed giant driving tram-cars for the Johannesburg Municipality the day that Henry Irslinger and George Boganski ambled into the city to find an undisturbed pool—from a wrestling promotion point of view—that hadn’t even been fished in. He didn’t know that their arrival was eventually going to make a difference to him, that he was going to be pulled into the wrestling whirlpool to find himself swimming in a river of gold. He was still driving tram-cars when Irslinger persuaded him to become a professional wrestler. He was afraid of the wrath of his father, a churchgoing venerable old fellow, who worked in one of the city parks. His father didn’t hold with the antics or the ethics of all-in wrestling. That was why he had to be draped in a black garb from head to foot, billed as the Masked Marvel, and building up his mat career in Durban. Secrecy had to be maintained. He used to come off shift on the tramways, rush into a taxi-cab, step into an aeroplane at Baragwanath, and fly to Natal. After his appearances in the Durban ring, he would fly back and be driving a tram-car in Johannesburg the next day, just as if nothing had happened in between. His Wife Sent Him Back. But his phenomenal success softened the family opposition to his mat career. So much so that when, some months ago after his defeat for the Empire title by Earl McCready, he wanted to retire from the game, his wife persuaded him to go back to the ring to recapture all his former glories and glamour.

Van der Walt made £IOOO the first year he wrestled as the Masked Marvel. The disguise proved good publicity and Irslinger strained every nerve to hold the secrecy. Even the officials of Boards of Control up and down the country had their legs pulled about Van der Walt’s identity. Thus, when in 1935 I was the first to disclose that the Masked Marvel was no other than John van der Walt, a Johannesburg motorman, Irslinger nearly threw a fit. He sent wires denying it, he told the Durban Press that the story was just moonshine; he actually got Van der Walt’s brother into the Durban ring one night that Van der Walt was wrestling in a mask and announced this brother as “John varf der Walt.” Irslinger was afraid that the debunking of the Masked Marvel was going to be the end of Van der Walt. Actually it was the making of him. He had become such a good wrestler by then that he didn’t need to hide his identity. People flocked to see him. His earnings went up with a jumpdoubled and trebled themselves. During the five years he has already completed as a professional wrestler, Van der Walt’s income has averaged £3OOO a year. He bought himself a Hornet Moth, in which he did his own flying. (He sold it just the other day, because he wants to buy a Hawker Hurricane.) He has bought a 10,000 morgen farm, which he intends to convert into a ranch; he is a shareholder in a newspaper and in a couple of businesses; he has holdings in oil; he runs a Packard; he has started a collection of racing and roller pigeons; and he has gathered—chiefly in his travels in Europe and America—a curious assortment of pipes, including a Turkish model that, he picked up in Constantinople and a Bohemian bowl that he bought in Tyrol. Back Among The Tramwaymen. But while Van der Walt as a wrestler has hit the sky lights and the headlines, Van der Walt, as a big, cheerful and likeable curly head, has not changed. He left the tramway service a long time ago, but he still drops in now and again to have a chat wih his old mates at the tramwaymen’s rest-room; and he does a good turn here and there unobtrusively. He still lives in the house he has occupied for years out at Westdene. His wife still makes her own dresses and does her own cooking. And he still goes to church on Sundays. But his good fortune will mean a lot to his eight-year-old daughter and to his five-year-old son. Hester is going to be a school teacher; and Jan Hendrik, the son, is to be either a doctor or a predikant.