Esta TerBlanche, a South African actress best known for her role on “All My Children,” died on Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 51.
Her death was confirmed by her publicist, Lisa Rodrigo. An autopsy report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner was pending, Ms. Rodrigo said.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
From 1997 to 2001, Ms. TerBlanche played Gillian Andrassy, a Hungarian princess who is sent to live with her cousin. Her enemies-to-lovers story line with Ryan Lavery, played by Cameron Mathison, was popular at the time.
Esta TerBlanche was born on Jan. 7, 1973, in Rustenburg, South Africa.
She began her career at 16 years old as the host of a television show for children called “K-T.V.” and a math show called “Math No Problem,” she said in an interview in April on the podcast “Conversations With Nicole.” In 1991, she was crowned Miss Teen South Africa.
Ms. TerBlanche landed a recurring role as Bienke Naudé Hartman on South Africa’s longest-running soap opera, “Egoli: Place of Gold,” about three families in Johannesburg that are steeped in drama, sex, scandal and intrigue, according to News24 in South Africa.
She moved to the United States when she was 23 to pursue acting. In the podcast interview, she recalled arriving at Los Angeles International Airport with two suitcases and a stomach full of fear and doubt, wondering whether she should go home.
“I just knew in my heart, OK, this is your path, this is what you have to do,” she told herself.
She was cast in “All My Children” after auditioning for a role that the casting crew told her she was too young for, Ms. TerBlanche said on the podcast. But she got a call a month later to fly to New York to do a screen test for the character of Gillian Andrassy, she said.
Ms. TerBlanche appeared in more than 100 episodes of the show. Her first language was Afrikaans, and she often struggled to remember her lines in English, she said. Her flubs eventually became part of her character’s dialogue.
“I messed up the lines so often and said the wrong things, and they thought it was funny, and then they started to write it on purpose,” she said on “Conversations With Nicole.” Mr. Mathison, who played her love interest, followed her lead, and their scenes were full of surprises, she said.
“Maybe that’s why it really worked with us,” she said. “Because he never knew what to expect and what was coming next, and neither did I, really, because I never really knew what was going to come out of my mouth.”
The character of Gillian Andrassy was killed off the show in 2001 after Ms. TerBlanche expressed her desire to go back to South Africa, according to Soap Opera Digest. She returned for a single episode in 2011 in true soap opera fashion: as a ghost.
Ms. TerBlanche’s credits also included an appearance on the TV show “Spin City.” She hosted shows including “Carte Blanche,” “Supermodel” and “Wish You Were Here.”
She moved away from acting after “All My Children.” After returning to South Africa Ms. TerBlanche focused on charity work, opened her own spa and became interested in healing work. She split her time between Los Angeles and South Africa, and then began to imagine a return to Hollywood. She appeared in a short film, “Germination,” by the South African director Neil Sandilands and in documentaries by the filmmaker Michael Kastenbaum.
“As far as my acting goes,” she said on the podcast, “I would definitely be open to going back to it.”
She is survived by her father and her sister.
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