Early Life
Allan was born the daughter of an Italian expeditionary and a Rhodesian socialite. She was adopted by a wealthy British-South African couple, John and Janet Fry at age one month old. The family briefly lived in England but her Scottish father was advised by doctors to move to a warmer climate. Subsequenly Allan was brought up in the Johannesburg suburb of Bryanston and attended Roedean School. John Fry died when Allan was 10 years old. She is a trained classical pianist and recorded a televised piano concerto as a child, and made her debut with Johannesburg symphony orchestra at the age of 10. Later she graduated in fine art and attained an honours degree in English literature at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Read more about this topic: Jani Allan
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“All of Western tradition, from the late bloom of the British Empire right through the early doom of Vietnam, dictates that you do something spectacular and irreversible whenever you find yourself in or whenever you impose yourself upon a wholly unfamiliar situation belonging to somebody else. Frequently its your soul or your honor or your manhood, or democracy itself, at stake.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)
“The way to go to the circus, however, is with someone who has seen perhaps one theatrical performance before in his life and that in the High School hall.... The scales of sophistication are struck from your eyes and you see in the circus a gathering of men and women who are able to do things as a matter of course which you couldnt do if your life depended on it.”
—Robert Benchley (18891945)