Who are Thandiwe Newton parents Nyasha and Nick?
THANDIWE Newton has announced she is reverting back to the given spelling of her name, in a bid to embrace her dual heritage.
The actor, who is half British and half Zimbabwean, will now be credited with the original Zimbabwean spelling of ‘Thandiwe’, which is pronounced “tan-DEE-way’ – and was given to her by her parents, Grace Nyasha Jombe and Nick Newton.
Who is Thandiwe Newton’s mother Nyasha?
Thandiwe Newton was born in London to a white British father, Nick, and a Zimbabwean mother Nyasha.
Newton’s mother, who is now in her 70s, is a princess of the Shona tribe, from what was then Southern Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe.
According to Daily Mail reports, Nyasha’s full maiden name is Grace Nyasha Jombe.
She moved to London in 1966, and was a nurse at Bexley Hospital, a psychiatric institution in Kent.
Thandiwe Newton was born in London’s Charing Cross hospital in November 1972, but the first three years of her life were spent in Zambia.
Her parents worked in a hospital there until economic decline and political unrest drew the family back to Penzance.
Her family moved to her father’s childhood home in Penzance, Cornwall, when she was three.
Who is Thandiwe Newton’s father Nick?
Nick Newton is from an old Cornish family, which had connections to the mining industry.
In the early sixties, Nick, formerly known as Nicky, was a bass guitarist in a rock band called the Druids.
Nick moved to London when the band disbanded in the mid-Sixties, where he switched paths to become a lab technician.
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He also reportedly became involved with his family’s antiques business.
Nick and Nyasha sent Thandiwe to a local Catholic primary school, where she was reportedly bullied for standing out.
Speaking to Vogue, Newton said she was once excluded from a class photograph for sporting cornrows.