The actress in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray who kills herself is Sibyl Vane.
Sibyl is a talented young performer in a poor London theatre, where Dorian first sees her acting Shakespeare. She calls him “Prince Charming,” and he becomes fascinated by her beauty and theatrical gifts. Her younger brother, James Vane, distrusts Dorian and vows revenge if Sibyl is harmed.
Sibyl’s love for Dorian changes her attitude toward acting: once she experiences what she considers real love, staged romance seems false to her. When Dorian brings Lord Henry and Basil Hallward to see her perform Romeo and Juliet, she acts badly. Dorian cruelly rejects her, saying that her acting was her beauty. Soon afterward, Lord Henry tells him that Sibyl has killed herself by swallowing poison.
The episode is central to the novel’s moral design. Sibyl’s death reveals Dorian’s selfishness, while the portrait begins to record the cruelty behind his youthful appearance. Readers sometimes confuse Sibyl with Ophelia, the Shakespeare character Lord Henry compares her to, or with Mrs. Vane, her mother.