Up-and-coming actress/model Charlbi Dean has died at the age of 32. The South African star died on Monday in a New York hospital from a sudden and unexplained illness.
Charlbi Dean, born Charlbi Dean Kreik, was known for her part as assassin Syonide on DC Comics show Black Lightning. She had also appeared in movies Don’t Sleep, An Interview with God, and Porthole.
Charlbi Dean had recently landed her biggest role in Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, which won the Palme D’Or at the recent Cannes Film Festival. In the ensemble cast, Charlbi played a supermodel, Yaya, cast away on a deserted island when a luxury cruise ship is wrecked. Also featuring in the movie are Woody Harrelson and Harris Dickinson.
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The project was first announced by director Ruben Östlund in June 2017, after his film The Square won the Palme d’Or at the 70th Cannes Film Festival the previous month. He said the film was to be a “wild” satire set against the world of fashion and the uber-rich, with “appearance as capital” and “beauty as currency” as the underlying themes. According to the filmmaker, the title makes reference to a term used by plastic surgeons to describe the worry wrinkle that occurs between the eyebrows, which can be fixed with Botox in 15 minutes.
Triangle of Sadness
When the film won the Palme D’Or ,Charlbi wrote on her social media: “Congratulations our family we did it!!! @ruben_ostlund you’re the GOAT I’m forever thankful for you for trusting me to be apart of your genius and my dear @sinaostlund Can’t believe I had the best year making this during one of the hardest times in my life. Here’s some pics of the year in Sweden and Greece during the pandemic. Forever and always our @triangleofsadness family.”
Triangle of Sadness is scheduled to be released in France on September 28th, 2022, in the United States and Sweden on October 7th, in Germany on October 13th and in the United Kingdom on October 28th.
Charlbi Dean was engaged to male model Luke Volker. Her representatives said her death in hospital from a sudden unexpected illness was “devastating”. Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw said: “Charlbi Dean was a true star-in-the-making. Her loss is a huge one”, while 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.”
Born and raised in Cape Town, Charlbi Dean became a childhood model, adorning the covers of the South African editions of GQ and Elle, before making her acting debut in the 2010 film Spud, an adaptation of a popular South African novel also starring Troye Sivan and John Cleese.
She survived a near-fatal car accident in 2008 and went on to appear in such films as Death Race 3: Inferno and Blood in the Water.
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