Whenever I see Ramsey Nouah, I remember my first sight of him. It was in the early 2000s, I believe. The film is called “My Love” in which he starred as the poor village boy in love with a rich girl played by Chiege Alisigwe. The girl’s father is a strict no-tolerance man played by Pete Edochie. I think Sam Loco Efe played Ramsey Nouah’s sickly flute-playing. The film is what you could call star-studded with Emeka Ike, Hank Anuku, Rita Edochie, Hilda Dokunbo, Ngozi Ezeonu, etc. Ramsey Nouah’s friend tricks him into using his wife for money ritual. As the money rains, he sees his wife in the mirror dying. Devastated, Ramsey kills himself and joins his late wife.
It was an emotional movie for me and remains one of the best movies I have seen in Nigeria. I have now watched dozens of movies with Ramsey Nouah in it, but this one has a lot of stickiness for my view of him. Here is every question you ever asked about Ramsey Nouah answered. This will be fun.
Ramsey Nouah – age, heritage, state of origin
Ramsey Nouah was born on December 19, 1970. He is 49 years old which is a fact that would amaze many who are asked to predict his age on the strength of his looks alone. He is still able to play the role of a young playboy, a young parent, and a middle-aged bad-ass, perfectly; this, a testament of his powerful skill-set.
Ramsey Nouah was born Ramsey Tokunbo Nouah Jr in Edo State. His father is from Israel while his mom is from Ondo State. Ramsey Nouah is biracial or half-caste as Nigerians would call it, and Ramsey is aware of this and has made references to this, mostly jokingly, in interviews. As Ramsey Nouah is Nigerian, if pushed to choose for the sake of filling a form, he would tick Ondo State. But his defacto state should be Lagos where he and his family live, or Edo State where he was born.
Ramsey Nouah’s wife and kid
Ramsey is a family man. He is married to Emilia Philips-Nouah; they got married in 2004 and together they have a son named Quincy Camil Noah and a daughter they call Desiree Noah. The wife maintains a low-profile and you would be hard-pressed to find an article or an image of her on the internet. There are people who would swear that a lasting marriage is a result of keeping it off the eyes of the public and social media. This may hold some truths in it but Mr. Nouah sees it differently.
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“My wife believes in keeping our marriage and holding things down,” he said in an interview. Going on to say that whenever people asked him how come the two have lasted this long, his reply has always been: “My wife is the glue that has held our home together.”
This is gracious on his part but considering the fact that Emilia is married to a man whose job puts him in front of millions of women of all shape and grace, hundreds of whom would go totally bare at as much as a wink from the lover boy, she must be a strong, trusting woman and deserves all the praises heaped on her. Even if it is just for surviving the jealousness involved.
Career and the cinema revolution
Ramsey Nouah has hundreds of movie credits to his name. His career began in 1996 and got a sort of its peak in the early 2000s when he was by universal consent the hottest Nigerian alive. It was around this time that he featured in popular romantic films such as “True Love” with Omotola, “Supa Love”, “Valentino”, and “Power of Love” with Genevieve Nnaji, and “My Love” with Chiege Alisigwe. While Genevieve was his most popular romantic match, and he did admit to having a celebrity crush on her, in his prime, he has romanced popular stars such as Uche Jombo, Rita Dominic, Stephenie Okereke, Stella Damascus, Kate Henshaw, Mercy Johnson, Chika Ike, Bimbo Akintola, Yvonne Nelson, nearly every lady who was a big shot on-set.
With time, Ramsey Nouah’s figure as the number one lover boy was hit with the rise in prominence of the likes of Jim Iyke, Pat Attah, Emeka Ike, Desmond Elliot, Mike Ezuronye, Nonso Diobi, Alex Ekubo, etc; plus the Ghanaians such as his look-alike and fellow half-caste Van Vicker, Majid Michel, John Dumelo, etc. Ramset was no longer the number one; he was now one in more than a dozen. In fact, he fell into what many can be called a decline as it was far cheaper to use other actors. And by now, Nollywood as a whole was declining in quality but was churning out movies like a noodles factory.
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But the cinema culture was taking roots and in 2009, Ramsey featured in Kunle Afolayan’s “Figuirine”. “Figuirine” became the first of many for-cinema quality movies and began the new Nollywood era. And this was the saving grace for Ramsey. Nouah won Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role award at the African Academy Awards in 2010. One of his dozens of awards. Over the coming years, Ramsey would feature in “30 Days in Atlanta”, “Tempting Fate”, “76”, “Merry Men”, “Millions”, etc.
In 2018, Ramsey Nouah bought the right of “Living in Bondage” and made a great sequence “Living in Bondage: Breaking Free” out of it. With this, he announced his name as a director of note and woods to the pyre of the new Nollywood built on quality.
On quality, cinema, and the revolutionary Nollywood, Ramsey Nouah told CNN in a #AskRamsey on Twitter this: “So it’s a long thing, unlike how we just used to do cheap movies and it was like quick — people could actually tell most of our stories from the beginning, they could tell the end already. I want that to change, hence I don’t do too many of these movies anymore. But the cinema movies are now coming out and when that starts to come out then it would give room to people getting more from the movies.”
We wait. Anxiously.
Image source: 360nopes
