Shaleen Surtie-Richards – My View by Robyn Sassen and other writers

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Robyn Sassen
SEASON ticket to paradise: Shaleen Surtie-Richards as Shirley Valentyn in 2009. Photograph courtesy of litnet.

DESCRIBING HERSELF AS a “full on earthquake”, veteran stage, film and television performer Shaleen Surtie-Richards loved people, but she quipped that there were some people she would have been happy to poke in the eye. Unequivocal in her values, she was unforgettable in her stage presence, whether it was in roles of great pathos or immense hilarity. She died suddenly in her sleep on 7 June during a shoot for Kyknet’s telenovela, Arendsvlei in Cape Town. She was 66.

Armed with her guttural laugh bubbled by a lifetime of smoking, her distinctive dimples and her implicit gentle toughness, Surtie-Richards rose to the attention of South African audiences with Fiela se Kind in 1988, a film directed by Katinka Heyns, where she gave earthy life to the eponymous character, Fiela Komoetie, in the Dalene Matthee novel. Her skin colour and her roots saw her type-cast as…

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To read the complete post please visit https://robynsassenmyview.com/2021/06/14/a-tribute-to-shaleen-surtie-richards/

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