He made his debut as a film Director in 1951 with the Afrikaans-language film Daar doer in die bosveld. He directed 24 films.
Uys loved the outdoors and to get away from the hubbub of Johannesburg where he lived. He had a modest A-frame dwelling at Paradise Beach, a quiet coastal resort 5 km west of the surfers' paradise Jeffreys Bay (Eastern Cape). It was about 300 metres from the sea and for most of the years it had no electricity - only paraffin lamps and (later) gas Lights. He at times would slip away to his favourite holiday retreat where he was seen collecting plant specimens as a very keen amateur Botanist who had his own herbarium. Uys would ride around on his bicycle to get to interesting spots in the veld. He also was a keen builder of model aeroplanes, on which he spent many hours during his Paradise Beach visits. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he had a luxurious house built on the beachfront, a couple of hundred metres away from his old A-frame.
Uys's other well-known film was Funny People in 1977, which was a comedy in the same genre as Candid Camera in the United States, putting unsuspecting people in embarrassing positions. These included a talking postbox, with the voice of a man claiming to be trapped inside, who asks a passerby for help. When the passerby returns with his friends, the 'talking' postbox is silent, and his friends accuse him of being drunk. The sequel, Funny People II was released in 1983, and features a young Arnold Vosloo who later found fame in Hollywood.
Uys received the 1981 Grand Prix at the Festival International du Film de Comedy Vevey for The Gods Must Be Crazy, and in 1974 he received the Hollywood Foreign Press Association award for best documentary for Beautiful People.
Uys died of a heart attack in 1996 at the age of 74.
