LIZ BENSON, THE EVANGELIST AND ACTRESS. BOB EJIKE

LIZ BENSON, THE EVANGELIST AND ACTRESS. BOB EJIKE 

In the middle 90s, when I returned to Nigeria from Europe, Liz Benson was as relevant to the emergent film industry as sugar is to ice cream. Perhaps the appropriate term is indispensable, even though I do not cherish that word, but whether you like it or not, Nollywood commonsense means that some people are indispensable if the picture must sell, and Liz Benson’s face was the major assurance of the marketability of any film, which was why her portrait adorned almost all the film posters pasted in that period. But uncharacteristically, this fact and the accompanying ingratiating hero-worship of her teeming fans, which restricted her movement and constrained her lifestyle, never went to her head. In spite of her stature, which was legend, she welcomed me into an industry where seniority was, and still is determined entirely by the number of movies your face is able to sell, and the hierarchy is more stratified than that of a colonial fagging college. In the Nigerian film industry, more than anywhere else, water simply finds its level. But that was not for the amiable casually dressed, girlish, and sometimes temperamental Benson. We were laughing and joking from day one, as I recounted Michael Jackson’s stage tricks and she reminded me in chest-beating patriotism that in Nigeria Kanayo-O-Kanayo was more popular than Michael Jackson.

 By day two, I honoured an invitation to her stately Surulere apartment and benefited spiritually from the solemn prayers of her very pious mother. Liz loves life and beside her talent in acting, possesses the genetic code to turn happiness into an art, an artful designer of garments; she enjoys the peace of travel and culinary expression, for which her ethnic Efik people are legendary. Her little spare time is spent swimming, reading and watching her own films when her busy acting schedule permits. But she still has the tough skin that comes from being  a single parent who has to single-handedly create the means of sustainance of the family and  take heady and demanding decisions concerning the full upbringing and education of her children.  I performed with her in most of my earlier films, such as Scores To Settle, My Cross, Deadly Proposal, Confusion, etc. I vividly remember the emotion-charged last scene in Confusion, where I had compelled my prodigal younger brother (Kanayo-O-Kanayo), to go and reclaim his estranged wife (Liz Benson), the melodrama of the couple reuniting had built up into a heart-rending climax, and all of a sudden, (contrary to the dictate of the script) the tears started flowing involuntarily from Liz Benson’s eyes, streaming down and wetting her tremulous bosom, her eyes turning red with real anguish. The director Chika Onu was dumbstruck, but he was vaguely aware that this was the most rational reaction to the emotional build up and anything on the contrary would create a fiasco rather than a plausible conclusion. It was a wrap! In that moment I knew why Liz Benson was a burgeoning winner, not only because of her grace, beauty, diction, believability, conspicuously artistic carriage of diverse characters, captivating screen and stage presence, unflatteringly tenacious perseverance, devotion to, and mastery of the art, but she is simply a naturally talented actress. However, the remarkably versatile Benson is not the only queen that has reigned over the Nigerian screen, there have been other regents like Ndidi Obi, Uche Obi-Osotule, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, Susan Patrick, Joke Silva Jacobs, Genevieve Nnaji et al, while Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde has outlasted any other Nigerian actress in terms of sustained relevance at the apex, (which is by no means an easy feat), through the years, the impact of Liz Benson has remained unshaken and unbeatable, which is why her applause has been sustained, and she is generally viewed as a classic, a gem, a diamond that lasts forever. The strength of her myth remains in the fact that the average home-video buff still sees her as Nigeria’s best actress.

 Liz Benson’s professional acting career commenced in 1993, with her beatific appearance in the NTA series, Fortune. And fortune and fame she found. The Nigerian home video revolution coincided with the spectacular rise of the diva and she became one of the distinguished actors in the Nigerian  film rennaissance, debutting with an enthralling showing in Circle of Doom. Her most pronounced feature was the 1994 Nek Video blockbuster, Glamour Girls. Thereafter she melted the heart of the nation with her artistic splendour  in True Confession,  Yesterday, Evil Men 1 and 2, Shame, Trial, Pureman, Izaga, Burden, Stolen Child. Her art was polished by the privilege of the seasoned supervision of  some of the best film and theatre directors in Nigeria, including Last Eguavon, Lai Arasanmi, Lola Fani-Kayode, Tunji Bamishigbin, Chuck Mike, Andy Amenechi, to mention but a few. On stage she distinguished herself with her portrayal of Titubi in Morountodun, a production of NANTAP-National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners, based on  the Agbekoya revolt. Other theatre presentations that she starred in are Who’s Afraid of Tai Solarin, Second Chance, Harlem Jive, Sheroes. Her unrivalled expertise was brought to bear in movies like Yesterday, Lost, Dapo Jr, Nuns On The Run,  Chain Reaction etc, outperforming her concurrence to the helm. Her presentation of the television financial talk show Banking and You, helped her understand the inner complexities of the entrepreneural world, which she would belong to in no distant future.

For Liz Benson who started acting at five, and was widowed in her middle-twenties, following the death of her beloved husband Samuel Gabriel Etim, life has not been a bed of roses, as she had  to struggle resolutely for her survival and that of her three children, whom she was raising alone. Even at the crest of her radiance it was not always a tea party, as the inclement gossip industry frequently preyed on her private life, their headlines creating doubts about her real age, revealing her romantic affair with a juvenile, ‘young enough to be her son’, and alluding unflatteringly to intimate relationships with Nigerian Film macho man St. Obi and   Ghana’s former President Jerry Rawlings, generally portraying her as sexually promiscuous and decadent. Nevertheless, Benson was unfazed by the negative publicity her success was attracting, preferring the recollection of the positive hype she paradoxically gets from the same press. In the face of all these odds she rose to become Nigeria’s biggest female movie star. Her oral biography became the mythology of a widow fighting to escape from the oppression of her late husband’s relatives, who blame her for the death of her beloved, coincidentally a recurrent theme in the copycat Nigerian film, of which Liz was a protagonist, giving vent to the rumour that she was acting her life story, nationally drawing feminine sentiments. There was an unprecedented outpouring of condolence when the gifted Benson was attacked by robbers in Apapa, Lagos, one Sunday morning while taking her mother to church, and most of her acolytes love to remember that the ferocious bandits set her free as soon as they realized that their victim was the superstar Liz Benson, whose films they too enjoy.

 Fifty-five films later, her transfer from Surulere, (Nollywood, in global film parlance), the African film capital, to the deserved luxuries of the exclusive Victoria Garden City seemed to have drawn the curtains on her acting career, although it reportedly aided her involvement in other more lucrative enterprises.

Benson, who admires the acting skills of megastar Genevieve Nnaji is not overwhelmed by Nnaji’s current imposing dominance of the industry, which has downsized most of her contemporaries, feeling that the umbrella of Nollywood is large enough to cover all talented performers. She believes that she would have gone much further in her career had she been in Europe or America. In Benson’s opinion the highly propagandised incidents of sexual harassment within the industry are not for actresses who are worth their mettle, lamenting the Nigerian syndrome of fame without wealth.

Liz who is currently eyeing Hollywood and admittedly romantically attached, shuns marriage for now, because of her loyalty to her children, whose upbringing is her topmost priority. The lucky siblings are currently studying in England and the Republic of Benin.

After many years of artistic conquest and a decade-long retreat to attend to her calling as an evangelist Liz Benson is back on the screen. 

BOB EJIKE