Happy Birthday To The One And Only Mama G..G For General
Hip! Hip!! Hip!!! Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ozokwor was born on 25 March 1958 Ngwo, Enugu, Nigeria, she comes from a humble family in Ngwo.She is not wicked in real life. Her village is Amaobo. She attended Abimbola Gibson Memorial School, Lagos. She gained admission into Methodist Girls, Yaba but it was in the heat of the political crisis that later culminated into the civil war, she had to relocate to Enugu. Her father insisted that she was too young to be in the secondary school and that she should go back to Elementary five. She obeyed him and went two steps backwards in her education and later re-wrote the Common Entrance Examinations that she had earlier passed in Lagos. She got admitted to Girls Secondary School, Ngwo, where she had her entire secondary education and on completion, her result were not good. She took the private G.C.E and passed all her papers. She got married immediately afterwards.
Later on, she attended Teachers Training College in Afikpo from where she proceeded to IMT Enugu where she studied Fine and Applied Arts, specialising in Graphics. But she never practiced for one day. Initially, she never had the intention of joining the film industry. She did not even know anything about the industry. She was a teacher by training and she taught for about four years before venturing into broadcasting. She was employed as an announcer with FRCN Enugu and was later retrenched when they closed down all the medium wave band stations. She went into business.
ACTING CARRER
During her teacher training days in Afikpo, she had a competent Literature teacher who made them present a play each term. When it was the turn of her set to present a play, she was given the Role of Hamlet in William Shakespeare’s play of the same title and the production came out fine. Other schools that offered Hamlet as a subject paid to watch their production. In fact, they were invited to stage the play in so many other places in Southeastern Nigeria. She was very popular then and everywhere she went people were calling her Hamlet. But after the teachers’ training, she forgot everything about drama until she went into Radio Nigeria.
It was Chika Okpala (Chief Zebrudaya of New Masquarades) that invited her to take part in a commercial in which she played the wife of Pete Eneh. The commercial was a mass orientation promo by the Anambra State Government to encourage her citizens to acquire education before venturing into trading.
After the promo was shot, there was this positive reaction from the people, and Chief Zebrudaya himself was so impressed that he said, ‘what have you been doing with yourself, where are you, I am so impressed.’ He later confessed he never knew that he was doing the right thing by inviting her for the commercial. When Pete Eneh had the opportunity of shooting a serial (Someone Cares) for a television station, he gave her the lead role. During the shooting of the serial, many of the established faces that saw her commended her. They urged her not to light the candle and keep it under the table.
But as a member of the Scripture Union, she just felt that coming into Nollywood would give her an unnecessary exposure and secondly she was very shy. But those of them that wanted her on board were adamant until they succeeded in pulling her in and she was pleasantly surprised the way she rose in the industry.
After her first movie in 1998, she was already being recognised by people. But when she did Authority (1999), the movie became very popular and it really shot her into limelight. After Authority, she has been moving from one movie set to the another by the grace of God.
Personal life
She lost her husband a few years ago to a terminal disease. Although she lost her husband, Ozokwor was full of joy and gratitude to God for her achievements in the entertainment world. The actress recalled her days as a teacher, broadcaster and owner of a fashion institute before she went into acting by accident or better still, as fate would have it. “Right now I am a widow and I have three biological children and I have adopted one because I needed more children especially when my husband passed on. She is a proud and caring mother of four, two sons, one daughter and she also adopted another child after her husband died. Ozokwor’s first son is an engineer while the last is a footballer with Rangers International of Enugu.“Patience is different from Mai Azuka you know (from her various roles on Nigerian movies). She is hard working. I do so many things in life. I was once a radio announcer. I am also a fashion designer. “I love entertainment and that is why I do music, acting and designing.” She also spoke about her experience in Zimbabwe. “Zimbabwe is a beautiful country with a lot of potential to be harnessed, I have also come here to harness that myself. “My stay here has been quite an experience. I was taken to Victoria Falls and I saw some elephants there.”
Patience's daughter Chioma Nnenna Lameya Ozokwor got married in Enugu in March 2010.
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