FEATURE: Hollywood Witsies
David Jammy
BA 1989, LLB 1996 ‒ P R O D U C E R
“LA is an extraordinary place and there is no doubt it is the epicentre of the entertainment industry, so whether you are in studio films or music performance or Netflix, Apple and any of these new platforms, it all gets run out of this one huge city.”
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David Jammy (BA 1989; LLB 1996; SRC President 1991) lives in Santa Monica, a coastal city west of downtown LA, with his wife Monika Wagenberg, a film festival director who is taking time out to raise their two children. They’ve been here for six years, following David’s six years in New York when he moved from South Africa in 2008. He knows New 32
York well as he also spent time there in the nineties when he did his Master’s in cinema studies at New York University. “What’s interesting about LA is that although there’s such a sophisticated industry here, the west coast of America still has a frontier feel where people are making up the rules as they go along. You are
surrounded by people chasing the American dream and reaching for stardom and greatness and money. The more cynical view is that it is a terribly materialistic, individualistic, greedy place churning out values that are making the world a very precarious place.” David’s journey to America started in South Africa where he and Wits alumna
Stars are far more than people, they are multimillion dollar entities. When you meet them they’re charming and vulnerable and real people
