Anneline Kriel

Kriel was nineteen years old when she became Miss World in 1974. This marked a tumultuous period in South African history, as the international boycott of South Africa due to the apartheid system continued to take place. As a result, she sometimes caught the fire of international media that depicted her as a face of the apartheid regime. In support of the boycott, the United Kingdom and Australia refused to accept her as part of the obligatory world tour of the Miss World pageant.

Welsh singer Shirley Bassey (one of the contest judges) also protested against her receiving the award. However, the United States later relented and Kriel was allowed to make television appearances in the country. In South Africa, her victory at the contest received a rapturous response from both the public, and local media.[1]

Upon finishing her term as Miss World, Anneline worked in advertisement and modelling.

Thereafter, she became an ambassador for several beauty brands, completing public relations activities and studied Drama at the University of Pretoria.[2] She has also starred in several Afrikaans-language films, soap operas, stage plays[3] and the internationally successful film, Kill and Kill Again which debuted at #2 at the US Box Office.[4]

In 1981, Kriel released the pop single, "He Took Off My Romeos"[5][6]

In 2017, the Krugerrand-studded dress which Kriel had worn as her National dress was put on public display at the Prins and Prins Diamonds Museum of Gems & Jewellery in Cape Town.

In 2018, Kriel added another evening gown to the exhibition that she wore on the evening of the Miss World Pageant in 1974. The dress is also on display at the Prins and Prins Diamonds Museum of Gems & Jewellery.

In 2018, Kriel attended the sixtieth Anniversary Celebration of the Miss South African pageant in Pretoria.

On 7 September 2019, Kriel was a guest speaker at the annual upgrade of the Witkruis monument between Mokopane (Potgietersrus) and Polokwane (Pietersburg), in South Africa.

To date, she has appeared on the cover of the Huisgenoot magazine 33 times.[2]

Kriel was born in Pretoria to an Afrikaner family and was raised in the mining town of Witbank, the daughter of a prison officer.[1] She has two siblings. They finished their education at Hoërskool Generaal Hertzog.

As a student, she lived in Huis Asterhof (formerly Vergeet-my-nie) whilst studying drama at the University of Pretoria. Kriel made one film called "Somer" which was a set book for schools written by CM van den Heever. She also made a television short story in Afrikaans, called "Storieboekmoord". Whilst at university, she became Rag Queen and entered the Miss South Africa competition and won the Miss Northern Transvaal Competition. She won the Miss South Africa title in 1974, and then became Miss World (after initially holding second place) when Helen Morgan of the UK stepped down after just four days.

In March 1976, Kriel was embroiled in a scandal over leaked nude photographs that she willingly posed for, and appeared in the media and on the front page of the Sunday Times. Roy Hilligenn took the photographs and sold them to a British newspaper.

Kriel went from being Miss World to being a fashion model and worked in Italy for five years. She worked as the Birra Peroni model in television and magazine adds. She also worked as a model in Paris and New York with Johnny Casablanca Model Management Agency. Kriel learned some French and Italian from these experiences.

Kriel returned to South Africa from New York to marry Sol Kerzner in 1980. She divorced five years later, converted to Judaism in Switzerland[7] under the supervision of rabbi Mordechai Piron, then the rabbi of the Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Zürich (ICZ), the biggest Jewish congregation in Switzerland.[8] Later in 1989, she married the millionaire horse breeder Philip Tucker in Johannesburg, where they lived and had two children; Tayla and Witney. They divorced five years later in 1994.

Kriel married Peter Bacon on 28 March 1996, the CEO and former protegé of Kerzner. The couple currently reside in Mauritius.

Kriel and Sol Kerzner sought an interdict against Jonathan Ball Publishers Ltd. and Allan Breenblo over Breenblo's Kerzner Unauthorised, an unauthorised biography of Kerzner. They claimed that the content would infringe on their reputations.[9]

In 2007, Kriel, a Goldin family friend, attended the murder trials for the killers of actor Brett Goldin and fashion designer, Richard Bloom.[10]

In 2017, Kriel suggested that then-President of South Africa Jacob Zuma face charges of crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court for failing to protect farmers in South Africa.[11][12]

External video
MISS WORLD - COLOUR 1974 Miss World at the Albert Hall. AP Archive - British Movietone News footage.

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