It’s a sad, sad day in Pine Valley and, for that matter, in the whole daytime community: Esta TerBlanche, who played Gillian Andrassy on All My Children from 1997-2001, has died at just 51 years old.
The actress’ passing was confirmed to TMZ by her goddaughter on July 21. On Facebook, her publicist wrote that “I can not believe I am posting this. It’s with a heavy heart that [I say] my friend and client Esta TerBlanche passed away Thursday of natural causes.
An autopsy report is pending. I am still processing and in shock. Esta was a beautiful soul in and out. I was proud to know her and work with her… May she RIP with the angels that she is.”
The onetime Miss Teen South Africa got her big break when she was cast as Beatrice “Bienkie” Naudé Hartman on Egoli: Place of Gold, the first South African soap opera.
The drama, which ran for just over a decade, chronicled the lives of families living in Johannesburg, aka the City of Gold.
Two years after TerBlanche exited that show in 1995, she joined the cast of All My Children as trouble magnet Gillian, a Hungarian princess who had been driven by scandal in her home country to seek refuge with her second cousin, Count Dimitri Marick.
She found true love with Ryan Lavery (Cameron Mathison, now Drew on General Hospital), but was eventually killed off when she was mistaken for General Hospital heroine Anna Devane, who had been marked for murder by her own treacherous mother.
Upon hearing the sad news, Mathison took to Instagram to share in a story: “R.I.P., my sweet princess. Esta helped me last year when [my dog] Red was sick and paralyzed, and I was struggling. One of the sweetest people ever.”
In addition to Egoli and All My Children, TerBlanche also appeared on K-T.V., Three Thieves and a Wedding, The Syndicate and Spin City.
Just a week prior to her death, Soap Opera Digest published an interview with the alum in which she said that a return to soaps was “definitely something I would like to get back into.”
