List of Famous people born in Gauteng, South Africa
Sydney Brenner
Sydney Brenner was a South African biologist. In 2002, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and Sir John E. Sulston. Brenner made significant contributions to work on the genetic code, and other areas of molecular biology while working in the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He established the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of developmental biology, and founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, United States.
Neill Blomkamp
Neill Blomkamp is a South African-Canadian film director, producer, screenwriter, and animator. Blomkamp employs a documentary-style, hand-held, cinéma vérité technique, blending naturalistic and photo-realistic computer-generated effects, and his films often deal with themes of xenophobia and social segregation. He is best known as the co-writer and director of the critically acclaimed and financially successful science fiction action film District 9, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He directed another dystopian science fiction action film Elysium, which garnered moderately positive reviews and a good box office return. He is known for his collaborations with South African actor Sharlto Copley. He is based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Garrick Higgo
Garrick Higgo is a South African professional golfer who currently plays on the European Tour and the Sunshine Tour. He has won three times on the European Tour, winning the 2020 Open de Portugal and the Gran Canaria Lopesan Open as well as the Canary Islands Championship in 2021. He won his first PGA Tour title in his second start, at the Palmetto Championship.
Tshepo Motsepe
Tshepo Motsepe is a South African physician and businesswoman. She is the First Lady of South Africa of Tswana descent, as the wife of Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa. She is the older sister of Bridgette Radebe and her brother is Patrice Motsepe.
Branden Grace
Branden John Grace is a professional golfer from South Africa who currently plays on the European Tour, the PGA Tour, and the Sunshine Tour. In 2012, he became the first player in the history of the European Tour to win his first four European Tour titles in the same year.
Arnold Vosloo
Arnold Vosloo is a South African American actor. Famous for roles such as Imhotep in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, Colonel Coetzee in Blood Diamond, Pik van Cleef in Hard Target, Dr. Peyton Westlake / Darkman in Darkman II and Darkman III, Zartan in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and its sequel, sniper Jacob Broadsky in Bones and terrorist Habib Marwan during the fourth season of 24.
Barbara Hogan
Barbara Hogan is a former Minister of Health and of Public Enterprises in the Cabinet of South Africa.
Lyndon Rive
Lyndon Rive is the co-founder of SolarCity and served as its CEO until 2017. SolarCity is a provider of clean energy services that designs, finances, and installs photovoltaic systems, performs energy-efficiency audits, and retrofits and builds charging stations for electric vehicles. Rive co-founded SolarCity with his brother Peter in 2006.
Dean Geyer
Dean Stanley Geyer is a South African Australian singer-songwriter and actor who finished third in the 2006 season of the talent show television series Australian Idol, and has had a notable role in the Australian soap opera Neighbours as Ty Harper. He joined the cast of the US show Glee in the 4th season as NYADA Junior Brody Weston and appeared in Terra Nova as Mark Reynolds.
Lawrence Anthony
Lawrence Anthony was an international conservationist, environmentalist, explorer and bestselling author. He was the long-standing head of conservation at the Thula Thula animal reserve in Zululand, South Africa, and the Founder of The Earth Organization, a privately registered, independent, international conservation and environmental group with a strong scientific orientation. He was an international member of the esteemed Explorers Club of New York and a member of the National Council of the Southern Africa Association for the Advancement of Science, South Africa's oldest scientific association.