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Actor Jonathan Crombie, most famous for his role as the love interest in the television series of Anne of Green Gables, has died. He was 48 years old.

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Anne of Green Gables producer Kevin Sullivan says Crombie died from complications from a brain hemorrhage in New York City on April 15.

Crombie became a heartthrob to multiple generations after he won the role of Gilbert Blythe, played opposite Megan Follows as Anne Shirley, in the 1985 award-winning CBC production of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s famous novel.

He went on to star in sequels to the series, including movies Anne of Avonlea (1987) and Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story (2000). He also starred in the TV series The Secret World of Benjamin Bear, Slings and Arrows, Power Play and Mont Royal. Most recently, he is credited as the writer on the documentary Waiting for Ishtar and an appearance in an episode of The Good Wife in January, according to the Internet Movie Database.

Crombie also had numerous roles on stage and in musical theatre, performing at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, in Toronto and in The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway in 2008.

Sullivan says the news was “completely unexpected” and he called Crombie the “quintessential boy next door.”

“There were literally legions of young women around the world who saw him as kind of the perfect boyfriend and many people fell in love with him,” he said.

“But on a personal level he was as generous and sensitive and ambitious in some ways as the person that he played on screen.”

Crombie was born in Toronto on Oct 12, 1966 to the city’s former mayor and parliamentarian David Crombie and wife Shirley. Carrie Crombie, the late actor’s sister, told CBC News his organs have been donated.