Brett Goldin was a South African actor and part of the Crazy Monkey comedy troupe. Goldin was murdered in Cape Town in 2006 alongside friend Richard Bloom, a fashion designer who was a label manager for the Maze clothing company in Cape Town.
Goldin began performing professionally at the age of eleven and had extensive experience in television, film and theatre.
Television
Goldin, along with Trevor Clarence, Brendan Jack and Gavin Williams, performed stunts in the popular Crazy Monkey series of comedy inserts aired between music videos by MTV. He starred in commercials for Pepsi and CNA. His television acting roles include Terry Schachter in the science fiction drama series Charlie Jade, Michael Krauss in the 2003 television filmdramaCitizen Verdict, and Dylan in Season 3 of the South African drama series Yizo Yizo.
Film
Goldin's film roles include Carl in the 2002 horror film Slash, Lourens in the 2003 romantic drama Proteus, and B-Dog in Crazy Monkey's 2005 comedy feature filmStraight Outta Benoni.
Theatre
In 2004 Goldin wrote and acted in his first stage play, a one-man show titled Bad Apple, which examined what would happen if a Columbine-style killing spree were to occur at a wealthy public school in Johannesburg. The production opened in August 2004 at the Intimate Theatre at the University of Cape Town, directed by Matthew Wild. The production received excellent reviews from the local press. At the time of his death, Goldin was playing the role of Guildenstern in Hamlet at the Baxter Theatre and was set to go tothe United Kingdom as part of the South African production to be performed in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Murder
Goldin was murdered alongside a friend, Richard Bloom, in the early hours of Sunday 16 April 2006. They were killed with two shots each to the back of the head in Mowbray, Cape Town, after they had left a party in Camps Bay. They had been hijacked and shot execution-style. Police and family members were alerted that the men were missing after police patrolling Camps Bay in the early hours of Sunday morning stopped a car being driven recklessly and suspiciously and found Goldin's credit card in the possession of men in the vehicle. The men were questioned by the police and eventually pointed out the location of the bodies of the deceased. Reportedly found naked except for their socks in the veld next to the M5 freeway early on Monday 17 April 2006, some media coverage of the murders was deemed "particularly disturbing and highly insensitive". Both men killed were gay, and members of the local gay community were traumatised by their violent deaths. Eleven suspects were initially arrested for the murders. In May 2007, 25-year-old Shavaan Marlie and 23-year-old Clinton Davids pleaded guilty to the murders of Goldin and Bloom and several other related charges. Marlie and Davids received an effective 28 year prison sentence each in terms of a plea bargain agreement. Four other men had been sentenced for related charges the previous year in terms of plea bargain agreements requiring them to testify against Marlie and Davids.
Shortly after Goldin's murder, the Baxter Theatre Centre in Cape Town, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Actors Centre in Johannesburg founded the Brett Goldin Bursary Fund in his memory.
