Please join us in sending our condolences to GENERAL HOSPITAL’s Inga Cadranel (Harmony), who is grieving the death of her dear friend, Canadian film and TV director Charles Officer. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Officer was just 49 when he passed away on Dec. 1 at his Toronto home.
Remembering her friend in a lengthy Instagram post, Cadranel confessed that it had taken her a few days to find the best blend of words to express what Officer meant to her. “My writing partner, producing partner, confidant, and beloved friend of 20 years has transitioned to the spiritual world,” she shared.
Cadranel went on to explain that Officer was her biggest cheerleader. “There had been absolutely no one in my life who has believed in me, supported my work, encouraged me, and told me I could do anything and to never give up because he was by my side guiding me along the way than Charles,” the GH actress divulged. “To say I have lost a friend is an understatement. The world has lost a light. An angel.”
The cause of Officer’s death has been stated by Deadline as complications from a heart attack and by The Hollywood Reporter as complications following a lung transplant he underwent last December. Both outlets reported that the director had been battling an illness for some time. “A small circle of us had been protecting his health issues for the past year, and every day we felt like he was getting better,” Cadranel wrote. “Sitting with Charles in his hospital [room] for three hours just talking last time I saw him was the highlight of my year.”
Planning out new projects and thinking up ways to improve upon their current ones inspired Cadranel about her and Officer’s “exciting futures together.” His death, understandably, has devastated her. “I am beyond gutted,” she confessed. “I miss you with every passing minute. I love you so much.”
Concluding her tribute to her business partner, Cadranel promised to do all that she could to honor Officer’s memory. “I’m keeping your name, your work, and your spirit alive. I make that promise to you, old friend,” she signed off. “I will never give up.”
Considered a trailblazer among Black Canadian independent filmmakers, Officer’s best-known film was the 2009 urban love story Nurse.Fighter.Boy. He also directed several episodes of the CBC/BET+ drama THE PORTER, about railway workers from both sides of the Canadian/U.S. border. His latest film was Akilla’s Escape, a crime noir about an urban child soldier who confronts a cycle of generational violence he thought he escaped.
Officer is survived by his partner, actress Alice Snaden, and their two-year-old son, Selah. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time.
