Esta TerBlanche, ‘All My Children’ Actor, Dies at 51

Esta TerBlanche who was famous for her character Gillian Andrassy on ‘All My Children’ has passed away. She was 51.

By Michaela Zee

Jul 21, 2024 04:56 PM

Esta TerBlanche, best known for her role as Gillian Andrassy on “ All My Children ,” has died. She was 51.

TerBlanche died on Thursday morning at her home, as per The County of the Medical Examiner of Los Angeles. The cause of her death is being investigated.

The manager of her talent, Annie Spolianky, also confirmed the information with Variety and said that TerBlanche was an “wonderful, kind and loving person.”

TerBlanche was Gillian the difficult Hungarian princess, in the television show “All My Children” from 1997 until 2001. She was the wife of Ryan Lavery (Cameron Mathison) and was removed from her life support following the incident in which she was killed by an assassin during an incident of mistaking her identity. TerBlanche was Gillian’s ghost in one episode in 2011 as the soap opera came to an end its run of four decades on ABC.

“When I returned I was very emotional for me as well as Cameron. When we first saw each other and started to cry, we both cried,” TerBlanche told Soap Opera Digest in an interview on the 13th of July. “Back then, we hadn’t seen each other for years, so it was such a touching moment for us.”

TerBlanche began her life on January. 7th, 1973 in Rustenberg the city of the North West province of South Africa. She was named Miss Teen South Africa in 1991.

In her early days as an actor TerBlanche was given the role of Beatrice “Bienkie” Naude Hartman in “Egoli: Place of Gold,” the first South African soap opera, which she starred in between 1992 and 1995. Then she relocated into America. U.S. and worked on “All My Children.”

Following the demise of her character from “All My Children” in 2001, TerBlanche returned to South Africa in 2001, where she set up an spa and began working on documentaries alongside the filmmaker Michael Kastenbaum, Soap Opera Digest stated. At the time of her death, she was split in South Africa and California.