This light skinned actress needs not much introduction. She
is well known for the controversies trailing her in Nigeria’s entertainment
industry. Aside her controversial side, Shan George is also a hard working
mother of two boys, with over 20 movies to her production credit. She has
surely come a long way. And now she is poised to premier her new movie
entitled, Finding Goodluck.
But once upon a time, this sultry and sexy actress was just
a village girl who spent most of her time on the farm, fetching water from the
village stream or running errands for elders. “I grew up in Ediba, Abi Local
Government Area of Cross River state, a very wonderful village. We had no
electricity or pipe borne water but I’ll tell you what, it was so much; those
who did not grow up in the village definitely missed a lot. I was a bit of a
tomboy; climbing mango trees, going to the farm, fishing and swimming; it was a
great experience.”
However, at just age five, when most kids begin to develop
retentive memories, her British dad who was an expatriate working in Nigeria
died and so Shan, an only daughter, was raised single handedly by her mum who
did all she could so that her little daughter could get the best out of life.
Recalling her years in Ediba, Shan says laughing softly: “When I was a kid, I wanted
to be a lawyer because I thought that would help me correct the ills in the
society. In my childish mind, I saw things that I felt were wrong and I felt
that if I read a lot of books and became a lawyer, I would be able to correct
the wrong things going on around me when I grew up. However, I ended up behind
the camera.”
As a child growing up, Shan had her own fair share of
pranks. Her favorite was plucking mangoes from a tree that had a charm or juju
tied around it. She laughs gaily as she recounts the experience: “I and my
friends used to pluck mangoes from a tree that had a talisman tied around it to
scare away people. We were not supposed to go near the tree or even pick
mangoes that fell on the ground. However, we believed that we could neutralize
the effect of talisman by packing a lot of sand and telling the tree, “if you
can count this sand we are pouring on you grain by grain, then you can do to us
the harm you were sent to do.’ And then we took off the talisman, climbed the
tree and plucked our mangoes. When we came down, we tied it back and fled; that
was very daring.” But like the popular saying goes, every day for the thief,
one day for the owner. Judgment day finally came and Shan was caught while her
friends escaped! However, for Shan, life is the village was sheer bliss and
peaceful.
Despite loosing her dad at age five, she never felt his
absence because of the typical African setting where she grew up, she had many
uncles and aunties who stood in for her father. “This is Africa, no matter how
bad it is, you always had a father figure around,” she volunteers.
My mum thought me humility and never to believe that I am
too much and get carried away. She taught me to be down to earth. Those years
were fun-filled. We went to school in the morning and headed to the farm after
school to work and only came back home in the evening to listen to folk tales
before going to sleep, watch TV at the homes of those who could afford vehicle
batteries to run their television sets. That was when the desire to act began
to grow in me,” the actress recalls.
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