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Her rise and fall, and rise again
Businesswoman, motivational speaker and celebrity, Edith Venter launched her tell-all book The Art of Good Living in November last year. Heather Dugmore, who narrated the book, talks to Edith about life, love, money and sex.
How many people will openly discuss orgasms and menopause in the same conversation as they tell you how they picked themselves up after losing R10 million?
Not many, which is what makes Edith Venter so rare.
I have come to know Edith over countless cups of green tea as we sat together over many months, writing her book.
“Look, your tea is cold again!” Mary Magahle, Edith’s housekeeper for over 30 years, would stare at my cup.
“Don’t worry, I like it cold,” I’d reply, and quickly knock it back.
Mary would then gather our cups and within minutes, return with refills. So went the months.
There is nothing Mary does not know about Edith’s life.
She has been with her through times of plenty and times of hardship; she has been a second mom to Edith’s two sons, Blane and Marc, and she has seen Edith through a couple of marriages, a couple of millions and a couple of rogues.
Lately, she has seen Edith happier than ever before. In June last year, Edith married financial adviser Johnny Schwartz and, as Mary puts it, “Look at her now. So happy and so sexy!”
She is right. Edith today is a happy, sexy woman of 59.
Sexy, sexiness and sex – now there is a good place to start.
“I love sex,” Edith laughs, “Orgasms, too!”
In 2008 Edith received a call from Carte Blanche, asking if she would appear on the show. They wanted to do a light-hearted insert to offset the violence and political upheaval they had been featuring, and the idea they came up with was: “An Orgasm a Day Keeps the Doctor Away”.
“I wasn’t quite sure how to respond at first, since I needed to find out what Johnny felt about it,” Edith continues.
“What the hell, go for it!” was his response. So she did.
Of course, sexiness often has nothing at all to do with having sex. It is about feeling confident, about having a good sense of humour or a strong, interesting character, or a certain way about you.
Some have it, some do not. Edith has it.
Her sexiness has much to do with her ‘chutzpah’, that good old Yiddish word for boldness
and guts.
Whatever life throws at her, she reaches out, catches it, examines it, turns it over a couple of times, decides on the best way to handle it and moves forward.
She has dealt with much, including losing R10 million and an abusive third ex-husband – both of which she candidly discusses in the book.
“From the outset, let me tell you that I am not a wealthy woman,” she says, “No matter what it looks like or what you have read in the media, I am not a wealthy woman.”
She once was. In 1994, when Edith and business tycoon Bill Venter got divorced, she was awarded a divorce settlement of R10 million, plus the right to live for the rest of her life in a R2.2-million home (the house is in a trust for their sons). It was the highest divorce settlement ever paid in South Africa at the time.
“The long and the short of it is that I lost the R10 million through bad business decisions, bad investment advice and through trusting a con artist, who became my third ex-husband.
“It sounds ridiculous when I tell the story about how I got myself into such an emotional and financial mess, but what I gained from the experience of wealth gained and wealth lost, is the heartfelt knowledge that money comes and goes more easily than you can imagine and that all the money in the world does not make you happy,” she says.
Neither does the beauty business make you happy, as she explains in another chapter.
“We can’t all look like magazine models, and they don’t look like that anyway. Models are airbrushed to perfection, and then real women get neurotic because they could never look like them.
“The beauty business is a sad business in this respect, because it breeds such unhappiness in women.”
It also makes women insecure about growing older, which is good for the business because women pay large sums of money for the many, well-marketed elixirs of youth.
“Self-confidence, self-knowledge and self-love are the true elixirs of youth. There is no two ways about it, and we have so many examples of sexy, older women to prove it,”
Edith responds.
“Age happens to all of us. No matter how much plastic surgery and aesthetic enhancement we opt for (and I’m all for the latter!), age is age and we need to embrace and befriend it. If we don’t, life will be a battle, because each passing year adds to our age. There is not a person alive for whom this does not happen.”
Just as there is not a person alive for whom the change of life does not happen. It affects us all.
Edith explains how a few years ago things started going a bit haywire in her body: “I thought, ‘Ooh ooh, here we go’. I was getting all the classic menopause symptoms: I had hot flushes, I felt weepy and awful.
“I studied all the menopause issues and read up extensively on hormone replacement therapy. I decided this was the route for me, started on HRT, and I’ve never felt better,”
she says.
“I’m generally a great fan of the natural approach and I don’t like taking medication, but I do believe that there is a time and a place for everything, including help from the most modern medicines.”
Trying to improve our quality of life or feel good about life is all part of what makes us human. Our quest for love and to find a partner in life is another fundamental human quality.
“I have to say that I am a very fortunate person. I have found the most wonderful man, companion, husband and friend to hold my hand. Given my history, I could have been afraid and shied away from ever getting married again. But I didn’t, and I urge each and every one of you who might be feeling emotionally hurt or bruised to put your fears behind you and move forward into your future. Both in your relationship life and in your career life.”
Edith’s highly successful events co-ordination business, called Edith Venter Promotions, was started 10 years ago.
“I love people and I love organising parties and functions, so the events-organising business was made for me – but it took a while for me to discover this,” she says.
“Initially, I didn’t have to work, so there was no need for me to find my calling, career-wise. But when I lost all my money, I then learnt all about having to work.”
Edith Venter Promotions was launched in March 1999. Her first event was a function to celebrate the 2 000th episode of M-Net’s Egoli’s, for which Edith secured MTN as the sponsor.
“We were well prepared, but I still remember the shock of suddenly seeing hundreds of people starting to arrive. I said to Andrew Farr, my business partner at the time, ‘Is it too late to run?’ He said, ‘I think it’s too late.’
“With no place to run or hide, I composed myself and smiled as we welcomed our 2 000 guests!”
The success of Edith Venter Promotions is that she delivers what she has promised and she does not leave logistics to chance.
“All planning needs to be meticulous, and while it is wonderful to promise to hang stars on the clouds for clients, rather don’t.
“It’s not going to work. I believe in keeping things simple and fabulous, and following through on everything I do. Each and every detail must be taken care of, right down to the toilets. If the toilets are not as clean as I would like them to be on the day, I will clean them myself.
“When clients know they can leave everything in your hands, this is what builds their trust in you; this is what attracts them to you.
“Irrespective of the field you are in, it is how you build a good life for yourself and become your own business,” she explains.
“I also believe in treating people fairly, honestly and with respect. I truly believe the way I handle people and how I make them feel has been another key ingredient to my success.
“This is especially important if you are a celebrity. Some celebrities are incredibly rude. They seem to think that because they are famous, they don’t need to show people respect anymore.
That they no longer need to turn up on time, or return phone calls, or make an appearance when they said they would.
“I absolutely believe in respecting other people’s time, and if I am invited to be a VIP at a function and I accept, people know I will be there. Not just for the big events either. I’m talking about making sure that I show up at every church function or school function to which I’ve been invited. In fact, some of the smaller functions have been the most fabulous,” she adds.
“Even if something bigger comes along, once I have accepted an invitation, I do everything in my power to honour it. I’ve experienced what it’s like to have people drop you at the last moment. We always contact celebrities for our events well in advance, and sometimes they cancel at the last moment.
“They’ll say: ‘I can’t get back from Cape Town’, when you know they’re already in Joburg and have accepted an invitation elsewhere, which they consider to be more attractive.”
That is the one side of the success of the Edith Venter brand. The other side is all
about image.
“The events game is an image game, and this works in my favour,” she explains. “People tell me I have an air of wealth and glamour. They say I can wear a fake diamond and people will think it’s real.
“This is not unique to me, as I often tell women during my talks. We can all have an air of wealth and glamour. It’s all about how you carry yourself, not what you actually have.
“It’s also about having a positive nature. I am fortunate to have been born positive, and it keeps me going. People are attracted to those who are positive; they want to be around them.
“Of course, I don’t feel positive all the time, but I am a professional and sometimes I just have to set aside what I am going through in my personal life and put on a professional smile.
“In my business – the events and promotions business – you need the professionalism of a theatre performer. No matter what is happening to you, the show must go on, as people are paying you to be at your best and to deliver the best. I mastered this from day one of Edith Venter Promotions,” she says.
Words that have stood her in good stead, as evidenced by legal wrangles she experienced earlier this year, involving the sale of her company to Vivien Natasen’s Neo Africa.
The sale of her company could potentially have seen Edith legally disallowed from using her name for business.
While quite messy at the time, the issue has since seen itself resolved. “It is amicable. I can carry on doing charity events, but I am not allowed to take on new clients for 10 months.”
That court loss, coupled with a recent hijacking, mark some lowlights during Edith’s 58th year.
But her mood and demeanour at her recent 59th birthday celebrations serve as more proof that Edith is ever the optimist, ever
the professional.
Thanks for all the support.Please contact me 0836467860