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Popular ABC TV Actress Dead At 51

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4 months ago

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Esta TerBlanche, best known for her role in “All My Children,” passed away at the age of 51 on Friday.

“Deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my dear friend and client Esta TerBlanche,” Annie Spoliansky, a talent manager at Key Management, said in a written statement. “She was a beautiful and gentle soul who will be incredibly missed. Her long-running role on ‘All My Children’ will live on.”

As of Monday morning, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s website did not list a cause of death for TerBlanche, who reportedly passed away at her home. The exact cause is still under investigation, with an autopsy scheduled for a future date. According to the Department of Medical Examiner’s Office, her death is being examined further with “other significant conditions.”

Esta Terblanche at the Daytime Emmy Awards, NYC, 5/18/2001

TerBlanche, born in Rustenburg, North West Province, and of Huguenot descent, grew up on a game farm in South Africa. She was crowned Miss Teen South Africa in 1991 and starred as Bienkie Naudé Hartman on the South African drama “Egoli: Place of Gold” from 1992 to 1995. After moving to the U.S., she quickly landed a commercial and was later cast in the American daytime drama “All My Children” as Gillian Andrassy, a role she played until 2001 when she requested to leave the show.

TerBlanche returned to South Africa briefly but made her way back to the U.S., where she opened a spa and explored interests in the medical and healing fields. She resumed acting, making appearances on South African TV and movies, and in 2011, she briefly reprised her role on “All My Children.”

“I went to audition for something else and the casting people let my agents know they liked me but I was too young for the part,” TerBlanche said in February this year. “They said they wanted to write something for me. About a month later, we got a call saying they wrote something and wanted me to come screen test in New York.”

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“I just knew in my heart this is what I had to do,” she recalled. “You’ve got to do this. It was literally just getting up every day and doing it over and over again because it’s not just going in that one time to audition and you get the job.”

 

TerBlanche also appeared in stage plays and films and worked as a TV presenter in South Africa. She was a well-known figure in South African media, appearing on the covers of numerous magazines. She was fluent in Afrikaans, English, and German, and she also spoke French, Italian, and Russian with varying degrees of proficiency.

“Working on this American production was a blessing, really, and Cameron was amazing,” she said. “English wasn’t my first language, so I sometimes really struggled with remembering my lines, and he was really good at that. If I came in with the wrong lines, he would just adjust; he never made a big deal out of it.”

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