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ALL GROWN UP: Muntu Ndebele. Picture by Antonio Muchave

 I went to Miracle gym near Southgate (south-west Joburg) and said to the trainer: 'Can you make a miracle of me 

He speaks at prisons and schools, talking against drug-addiction and criminality.

Remarkably, he kicked his cocaine addiction with sheer will-power: he simply took up gym membership.

There was no formal rehab involved.

"I went to Miracle gym near Southgate (south-west Joburg) and said to the trainer: 'Can you make a miracle of me?'

"He simply looked, laughed at me and said 'yes'. That's when I rid myself of drugs.

"At the time Mandrax was popular but I preferred cocaine. I took only cocaine and it's an expensive drug," says the now clean-living, boyish-looking 50 year old.

He also did two years for car theft.

Enter film producer extraordinaire Andre Pieterse, the producer and scriptwriter of the blockbuster movie e'Lollipop in which Ndebele and co-star Norman Knox acted as children.

Pieterse is also the one-time mogul who co-founded both South Africa's two cinema chains, Nu-Metro and Ster-Kinekor, and was vice-president of US film giant Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).

He came back from US to find his one-time protege and tracked down the drug addled and down Ndebele in Hillbrow. He took him to a house, and gave him a Bible and a motivational book to read.

Ndebele was convinced and took himself to the gym...

Pieterse then asked Ndebele to jot down his life's journey since the days of his fame.

His writing became the basis of the new movie, A Million Colours, which premiered at the Hollywood Black Film Festival in Los Angeles, US last September.

A Million Colours, to be released in South Africa at the end of March, is the sequel to eLollipop and charts Ndebele and Knox's very different journeys to adulthood.

Ndebele, now a devout Christian, forever praises "the second chance" that God granted him through people such as Pieterse.

He also thanks his wife Wendy for sticking by him "for better or for worse".

He's something of a gym freak and, though he lives in Midrand, he prefers Soweto's gyms.

dlaminimd@sundayworld.co.za