Veteran Nollywood actor Lere Paimo has said that he started acting four years before Pete Edochie. He recently had his say while speaking during an interview with Kunle Afod, and fans have been reacting.
Disputing Edochie’s latest claim about the beginning of his acting career, Lere Paimo revealed that he began acting in 1958, four years before Pete’s career began in 1962.
Questioning the suggestion that Edochie belonged to the earliest generation of Nigerian actors, he cited late theatre legend like Hubert Ogunde and the Yoruba travelling theatre tradition as the real pioneers that deserve to be credited.
His words, “I started acting in 1958, and it was in 1962 that Pete Edochie started acting. I met Hubert Ogunde, who was senior to me and others, and there were big movies produced back then,” he said.
I heard from history that when he (Hubert Ogunde) started in the ’40s, there was nobody before him, and we never heard from history that the English industry, or any movie done in the English language, started before him.
Since we didn’t hear or read that in any history books or documentation, I believe the Yoruba industry started first.
There was nothing like English-speaking movie production then; Ogunde started by producing movies in the Yoruba language, which he used to educate everyone who watched those movies back then. We never heard about English-speaking movies until now, when, with civilisation, we started hearing and seeing that there are English-speaking movies.
I don’t know if Baba Olumegbon started before Ogunde, but all I know is that Ogunde was the person I knew who started acting first. Although I have been hearing about him for a long time, I can’t say he was senior to Ogunde.”
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