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The lo­cal arts fra­ter­ni­ty is pay­ing trib­ute to Zin­nia Li Chee­wah (born Dar­ren Chee­wah), 55, who was a break­out star on Par­ty Time in the 1980s and a beloved fig­ure, es­pe­cial­ly among young peo­ple in west Trinidad. Known for break­ing moulds, Chee­wah pre­ferred to be re­ferred to as “she” af­ter tran­si­tion­ing lat­er in life.

Her pass­ing came as a shock to many. Ronald Guy James, a vet­er­an de­sign­er and her land­lord, dis­cov­ered her life­less body in an apart­ment on his com­pound af­ter a close friend had been try­ing to reach her for sev­er­al days with no suc­cess. Au­thor­i­ties found no signs of foul play. It is be­lieved Zin­nia had suf­fered a seizure, a con­di­tion she had re­cent­ly been con­sult­ing a doc­tor about.

“Zin­nia was a very gen­tle, sweet char­ac­ter, very harm­less, just out to lib­er­ate her­self and en­joy life,” said Ster­ling Hen­der­son, a jour­nal­ist, artist and friend. “She was Tri­ni to the bone—vi­brant, au­then­tic, and un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly her­self.”