Alby Mangels

Albertus Zwier "Alby" Mangels (born 16 November 1948) is an Australian adventurer and documentary film-maker widely remembered for his World Safari adventure travel films (World Safari, World Safari II, and World Safari III).

Zwier Albertus Mangels was born in the Netherlands on 16 November 1948. His father Johannes (Jos) was a leather tanner. His mother was called Adrianna (Sjann). Mangels and his family moved to Australia in 1955 where they settled in South Australia. After about eighteen months in Australia his parents separated. His mother remarried but died of cancer when Mangels was fifteen. He left school at fourteen.

Mangels had a large variety of jobs, being a chicken farmer before and after his first World Safari and his last being in Murray Bridge doing brickwork.

Mangels set off in 1971 with friend John Fields on what was supposed to be a one-off trip. It turned into a six-year odyssey through several continents, which they filmed. The resulting film, first shown in Australia in 1977, was a considerable success and Mangels continued to travel through the 1980s, filming all the way. Two more World Safari films were made from this subsequent material.

The films featured Mangels and his constantly changing cast of companions travelling, on a shoestring budget and seemingly with little forward planning, throughout various wild areas. Mangels took a cavalier approach, both to natural and human hazards, relying on a variety of rickety vehicles, losing his ship to fire, travelling through a number of areas where guerrillas were active, and becoming involved in a number of unusual business enterprises. Mangels discovered that audiences responded to his risk-taking behaviour and featured more and more of it in his later films. While he may have played up the risks in some cases, he and his companions suffered a number of serious accidents and injuries along the way, the most notorious being an accident during the early filming of World Safari II. An accident resulted in his friend, Piers Soutier, becoming a quadriplegic and eventually dying from complications a year later. Mangels postponed the continuation of the film to remain with Piers, looking into the available facilities for disabled people during this time. The accident prompted Mangels to design a new form of wheelchair (which won Australian design awards including the Premier's Award for Design Excellence) and to found the charity DAD (Disabled And Disadvantaged children) with his sister, Maria Snel.

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