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South African actress and model Charlbi Dean, who starred in award-winning film Triangle of Sadness and TV series Black Lightning, has died at the age of 32.
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Dean had a breakout role opposite Woody Harrelson in Triangle of Sadness, which won the top prize, the Palme d’Or, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
In Black Lightning, based on DC Comics characters, she appeared as Syonide.
Dean’s representatives said her death in hospital from a sudden unexpected illness was “devastating”.
In writer and director Ruben Ostlund’s Triangle of Sadness, Dean played Yaya, one half of a model couple who were invited on a cruise that goes horribly wrong.
Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw said: “Charlbi Dean was a true star-in-the-making. Her loss is a huge one.”
Fellow film critic Robert Daniels tweeted that the news was “very tragic”. He wrote: “Charlbi Dean was on the verge of a breakthrough with Triangle of Sadness. I was so looking forward to where her career was going to go next.”
Another critic, Guy Lodge, called it “a massive shock”, adding: “She’s so witty and deadpan and clockwork-precise in Triangle of Sadness, and I was so excited to see a new South African talent on the international scene.”
