The Generations leading actor has `committed suicide’, write Charl Blignaut and Janet Smith
This week, notorious advertising executive Hilda Letlalo unceremoniously committed suicide in an SABC studio – and viewers of South Africa’s most popular locally produced soap opera won’t get a chance to see her demise.
That’s because Vinoliah Mashego, the award- winning TV actor and presenter who played the lead role of Letlalo in Generations, was reportedly sacked from the series a fortnight ago.
The producers of the series, watched by well over a million viewers each week, called Mashego into a meeting and informed her she was fired. Before the day was out her name was removed from her pigeonhole in the Generations offices.
Executive producer Mfundi Vundla said stories of her being booted off Generations should be regarded as “unconfirmed rumours”, and an SABC1 publicist said she had been written out of the series, but neither would elaborate.
However, fellow cast members of Generations say the move came as no great surprise and was a result of exasperation over Mashego’s outrageous behaviour both on and off the set.
Mashego, says a fellow actor, “often arrived late for rehearsals, forced scenes to be shifted around or reshot, and was often – at least once a week – too drunk to act”.
A worker on set says she “blatantly disregarded the rules” and would often become involved in screaming matches with co-workers. Nonetheless, say her colleagues, producers and directors on the show continued to favour her and “treated her with kid gloves, because they knew she had a following and were scared to lose her. But eventually they’d had enough.”
Mashego’s manager, Jacquie Still, released a statement on her behalf on Wednesday, stating that “any rumours which now abound are unfounded and do not originate from the producers of Generations, nor from anyone close to Vinoliah”. She says that, as with any soap opera, the characters and storylines change continually and that Mashego “has been in Generations since the inception of the series”.
Mashego’s character has since become larger and larger, with her breaking away from the central advertising agency that features in Generations and forming her own advertising company, Isis. With it, Mashego has become increasingly visible, increasingly loved by her many fans and, say several of her co- stars, “increasingly impossible”.
Mashego’s character, Letlalo – an ambitious, scheming businesswoman with a penchant for wealthy men – will leave the series near the end of Generations V.
She will not act her role to a conclusion, nor will she be replaced by another actor. Instead, Letlalo’s suicide will simply be reported and discussed among the characters. Those scenes were filmed this week, say the actors. South African viewers are currently watching Generations III.
Things came to a head, say her colleagues, during the wrap party for Generations IV at the jazz bar Kippies in September. Mashego was witnessed physically assaulting co-star Florence Masebe, who is also a presenter on the SABC magazine show Electric Workshop. When one of the Generations directors demanded that Mashego be fired, the producers placated him.
Mashego has also reportedly had a run-in with her co-presenter on the SABC music quizz show Jam Alley, Samantha Adams. Neither Adams nor Masebe were available for comment this week.
While Mashego will no longer be acting in Generations, she will still be seen on Jam Alley. Anyone who has watched the vibrant Mashego on television, or seen her whip a crowd into a frenzy at concerts and bashes, will know she could never just disappear from the local entertainment scene.
She took to the stage at the age of eight, dancing with her father, well-known TV presenter Collins Mashego. By the age of 12 she was starring in adverts, before moving into a career as a recording artist.
As an actor who has earned herself a clutch of awards and a reputation for being a party girl, Mashego has a huge grassroots following and, like Brenda Fassie, could well grow even more popular in her new role as South Africa’s bad girl.
BLURB: She has become increasingly visible, increasingly loved by her many fans and, say her co-workers, `increasingly impossible’