Connie Ferguson is saying goodbye to Generations, leaving her role of Karabo Moroka on South Africa's most watched daily TV soap opera after 16 years.
The shocking news is reverberating through South Africa's TV industry this Friday afternoon, especially the soap opera community and the SABC, where Connie Ferguson's character has been a mainstay since the beginning of the soap opera. Generations regularly pulls in a nightly TV audience of over 5 million viewers, making it the most popular soap opera - as well as the singlemost popular program on South African television, with no other TV show that comes close.
Connie Ferguson will be recording her last scenes for Generations at the end of August, and will still be seen in Generations on SABC1 until the end of October. She resigned from the Mfundi Vundla production. ''After sixteen years with the show though, I feel the time has come for me to go out in the world and see what else is there for me,'' the actress who has suffered all kinds of calamities as her character - even a long stint with blindness - said in a carefully crafted, production company released press statement. ''I feel like a teenager who is just about to leave home for the first time, both excited and nervous.''
In a nice jab, the production said they're ''saddened'' about the resignation, and curtly said: ''Connie will not be doing any interviews until her official departure from the show in August 2010''. The life of a soap star . . .
