By Nape Raditlhare and Shaun Smillie
Popular actress Lindiwe Chibi, best known as Doobsie - the TV soapie character she made her own before her boyfriend shot her - is dead.
Chibi, who was still recovering from being shot in the face in 2005, died of pneumonia at Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto on Wednesday.
On Wednesday night, neighbours and relatives began trickling into her home in Mofolo, Soweto, to offer their condolences to her mother.
Among them were Duma ka Ndlovu - producer of TV soapie Muvhango, in which Chibi starred - and actress Florence Masebe.
Ndlovu said Chibi had been recovering well before being admitted to hospital with pneumonia on Friday.
"Her speech had also improved and she could walk a bit. Her physiotherapist was confident of her recovery," he said.
"I phoned her last week and she sang beautifully for me.
"She was still regarded as the best actor long after she disappeared from the screen."
Ndlovu said Chibi had been such a good actress that viewers still associated Doobsie, her character in Muvhango, with her, rather than with the two actresses who had replaced her after she was shot.
"We had high hopes that she would get better and that we would see her reporting for duty one day. Her absence is still profoundly felt on the Muvhango set."
A tearful Masebe said: "I was hoping to have more time with her. I spoke to her a while back and she was recovering well.
"It was good news when I heard her speech getting even clearer. It was like a giant step she'd taken and we were hoping for some more good news," she said.
In 2005, Chibi defied the odds when she survived a gunshot at close range that entered her cheek and exited at the back of her head. At the time, doctors gave her just days to live.
She was shot by her boyfriend, Dan Mokoena, 35, at her mother's home.
The incident left her in a coma for three weeks. She surprised everyone when she awoke from the coma, but she was paralysed down the right side of her body.
In the months that passed she slowly began to get her life back through painstaking rehabilitation that included speech therapy and physiotherapy.
Mokoena was later arrested on charges of attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances and possession of an unlicensed firearm.
Chibi's friends were baffled by the seemingly senseless shooting by a man said to have been madly in love with her.
On the night of the shooting, Chibi's mother, Pamela Mgabadeli, said the couple had left her home laughing and talking to each other.
Moments later a gunshot rang out. Mgabadeli ran out to find her daughter lying in a pool of blood.
She claimed Mokoena pointed the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, but it jammed.
Shortly after the shooting, he allegedly hijacked a car at gunpoint but crashed the vehicle in Orlando. He was apprehended by members of the public and arrested. He is now serving a prison sentence.
Chibi began her professional acting career when she appeared in the play Ekuseni at the Civic Theatre in 1995.
She appeared in other plays, including Game at the Windybrow Theatre, for which she received a best-actress award. She also played the role of Stella Kowalski in the classic, A Street Car Named Desire.
But for thousands of fans around South Africa, Chibi was the original Doobsie, a character she had moulded and created herself.