[4] Rathebe rose to fame in 1949, aged 21, when she appeared as a nightclub singer in the British-produced movie Jim Comes To Jo'burg - the first film to portray urban Africans in a positive light.
During a photo-shoot for Drum magazine at a mine dump, Rathebe and the white photographer, Jürgen Schadeberg, were arrested under the Immorality Act, which forbade interracial relationships.
After Sophiatown was flattened by the Apartheid government in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Rathebe found it more and more difficult to perform, especially after an 8pm curfew was imposed.
In 2003, at the age of 75, Rathebe appeared in a Johannesburg show Sof'Town, A Celebration!, where she sang "Randfontein", the story of a drunk miner returning home to find his wife in bed with another man, who is then beaten and chased out.
In 2004, Rathebe was awarded the South African Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for her "excellent contribution to music and the performing arts and commitment to the ideals of justice, freedom and democracy".