Six things you (probably) didn’t know about Olu Jacobs

Olu Jacobs was born 11 July 1942, in Kano State, Nigeria. He spent his early childhood in Kano and attended the Holy Trinity School where he was a member of the debating and drama society. He gained inspiration in acting when he attended one of Chief Hubert Ogunde’s annual concert parties at the Colonial Hotel in Kano.

Even as a child, he loved watching stage plays and was fascinated by this act. He then told his parents that he wanted to join the little girls to dance in the next stage play, and his parents agreed. His participation in the play paved the way for his path in acting.

Due to his keen interest in the arts, Young Olu Jacobs informed his father of his intentions to study drama abroad and received pushback. Without his father’s knowledge, he then applied for a visa, which was granted to him.

Afterwards, he travelled to England to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, a school located in Bloomsbury, central London, that provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. The institution he attended was founded in 1904 and remains one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom.

After his education at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Olu Jacobs tried his hand at stage acting. One of his earliest stage roles was in 1972 when he played the part of The Boy in A Taste of Honey at the newly opened Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

While in England, he appeared in various British television shows and series in the 1970s, including The Goodies, Till Death Us Do Part, Barlow at Large, The Venturers, Angels, The Tomorrow People, and The Professionals. In 1978, he played the role of President Mageeba in Michael Codron’s presentation of Sir Tom Stoppard’s play, Night and Day.

He has since starred in over 100 films, from 1975 to date.

Olu Jacobs met his wife while directing the premiere of Wole Soyinka’s Jero’s Metamorphosis for Nigeria’s 21st anniversary. According to Silva, Jacobs’ told her he was going to marry her the first time they met, but she did not believe him.

When he asked her to marry him, he took her to a restaurant for a special dish at night and thereafter went on his knees to ask her to marry him. They married in 1989 and have since welcomed three children namely Olusoji, Dayo, and Olugbenga.

Olu Jacobs is not just a thespian; he is a lover of theatre and film. He and his wife established the Olufodo Academy of Performing Arts in 1985 as a stage and film production company.

The pair, through the group, visited privately owned schools to propagate the values of theatre to the young ones. It evolved in the following years and was incorporated on 25 September 2000, as a fully-fledged media and entertainment services company.

Olu Jacobs has been falsely reported to have passed away two times between 2020 and 2024. In 2020, the news was debunked by the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), and in 2024, his family refuted the resurfaced false claims.

In 2021, Olu Jacobs’ wife, Joke Silva, revealed that the renowned actor had been battling dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) for a couple of years. A degenerative disease like Parkinson’s disease affects the brain, and Silva stressed that the ailment had been very hard on him. He has since been out of the spotlight and away from the big screen.