Shannen Doherty, the Beverly Hills, 90210 star whose life and profession have been roiled by sickness and tabloid tales, has died at 53.
After years with breast most cancers, Doherty died Saturday, in accordance with an announcement from her publicist, Leslie Sloane.
“The devoted daughter, sister, aunt and good friend was surrounded by her family members in addition to her canine, Bowie. The household asks for his or her privateness right now to allow them to grieve in peace,” Sloane mentioned Sunday. The information was first reported by Individuals journal.
Her sickness was publicly revealed in a lawsuit filed in 2015 in opposition to her former enterprise managers, through which she alleged they mismanaged her cash and allowed her medical insurance to lapse. She later shared intimate particulars of her therapy following a single mastectomy. In December 2016, she posted a photograph of her first day of radiation, calling the therapy “scary” for her.
In February 2020, Doherty revealed that the most cancers had returned and he or she was at stage 4. She mentioned she got here ahead as a result of her well being situations might come out in court docket. The actor had sued insurance coverage big State Farm after her California house was broken in a fireplace in 2018.
“I do not know how lengthy I’m going to be on the chemo for. … That’s not one thing that I can predict, it’s not one thing my docs can predict. And it’s scary, it’s like an enormous wake-up name,” Doherty mentioned on a late June episode of her podcast Let’s Be Clear, including {that a} current change within the form of her most cancers cells meant there have been new therapy protocols for her to attempt. “For the primary time in a pair months most likely, I really feel hopeful as a result of there are such a lot of extra protocols now, whereas earlier than I used to be hopeful — however I used to be nonetheless getting ready.”
A local of Memphis, Tennessee, Doherty moved to Los Angeles together with her household at age 7 and, inside a number of years, turned an actor.
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“It was fully my choice,” she advised The Related Press in a 1994 interview. “My dad and mom by no means pushed me into something. They assist me. It actually wouldn’t matter if I used to be knowledgeable soccer participant — they’d nonetheless be as supportive and loving.”
As a toddler star, she labored steadily in such TV collection as Little Home on the Prairie, through which she performed Jenny Wilder. She detoured as an adolescent to the large display screen in Women Simply Wish to Have Enjoyable (1985) and Heathers.
In 1990, the doe-eyed, dark-haired actor gained her breakout function as Brenda Walsh in producer Aaron Spelling’s hit teenage melodrama set in posh Beverly Hills. She and Canadian actor Jason Priestley’s Brandon, Brenda’s twin brother, have been fish-out-of-water Midwesterners.
However Doherty’s fame got here with media scrutiny and accounts of outbursts, ingesting and impulsiveness — the latter most notably after a really temporary marriage to actor George Hamilton’s son, Ashley. Doherty’s second marriage, in 2002, was to Rick Salomon and was annulled inside a 12 months. In 2011, Doherty married photographer Kurt Iswarienko. She filed for divorce in April 2023.
She left Beverly Hills, 90210 on the finish of its fourth season in 1994 (the present aired till 2000), reportedly eliminated by Spelling due to conflicts together with her co-stars and persistent lateness.
However in her 1994 AP interview, Doherty described her life as peaceable.
“It should be, should you choose up the Enquirer and discover the one factor they’ll write about me is that I put in a pay telephone subsequent to my home and was seen at Stroud’s (a reduction bed-and-bath chain) shopping for $1,400 value of mattress linens and wouldn’t go to an costly retailer,” she mentioned. “It should be calm in the event that they’re pulling that stuff out of their heads.”
Three years later, in 1997, Doherty was sentenced to anger-management counselling by a Beverly Hills Municipal Courtroom choose after she allegedly smashed a beer bottle onto a person’s windshield throughout a quarrel. After a 2001 drunken driving arrest, she pleaded no contest and was ordered to serve 5 days in a work-release program.
Doherty reunited with Spelling when he solid her in 1998 as Prue Halliwell in Charmed. In an AP interview that 12 months, the actor expressed regrets about her previous.
“I did carry a whole lot of it on myself,” Doherty mentioned. “I don’t suppose I can level fingers and say, ‘Oh, YOU’RE responsible.’ And I don’t do this with myself, both. As a result of I used to be simply rising up.”
Her persona was “grotesquely misconstrued” by the media, Doherty added.
Spelling mentioned on the time that their relationship was by no means as dangerous as some made it appear.
“We had a number of bumps alongside the highway, however golly, who doesn’t?” mentioned Spelling, who died in 2006. “The whole lot Shannen did was blown out of proportion by the rag sheets.”
Doherty starred with Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano in Charmed from 1998-2001, at which level her character was changed by one performed by Rose McGowan. Doherty appeared within the 90210 sequel collection seven years later and competed on Dancing With the Stars in 2010. She additionally labored on the third Beverly Hills, 90210 reboot, BH90210, a meta send-up that reunited many of the unique solid and aired for one season in 2019.
She additionally appeared in a tribute episode of Riverdale devoted to that present’s star — and her late Beverly Hills, 90210 on-screen love curiosity — Luke Perry.
Doherty struggled to recapture her Beverly Hills, 90210 star standing, however labored in big-screen movies together with Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Again and in such TV films as A Burning Ardour: The Margaret Mitchell Story, through which she performed the Gone with the Wind creator. A nadir was Blindfold: Acts of Obsession, an erotic thriller reverse Judd Nelson.
Doherty’s lawsuit in opposition to her ex-business managers was settled in 2016. She was open in regards to the toll that most cancers was taking. She posted photographs that confirmed the baldness that adopted therapy and, in an August 2016 interview with Leisure Tonight, shared her fears.
“The unknown is all the time the scariest half,” she mentioned. “Is the chemo going to work? Is the radiation going to work?” she mentioned. “Ache is manageable, you recognize dwelling and not using a breast is manageable, it’s the fear of your future and the way your future goes to have an effect on the individuals that you simply love.”
Doherty advocated for most cancers consciousness and care, and spoke to the AP in 2021 about how spending years with the illness affected her life and sense of optimism.
“Whenever you get one thing like most cancers, your tolerance for drama is zero. I don’t like individuals losing my time. I don’t like negativity,” she mentioned. “It’s odd as a result of I feel should you look again, you’re like, ‘Oh, gosh, it’s a lot drama round her,’ however I don’t suppose I used to be essentially into the drama. I simply suppose if we took younger 18-year-old Shannen, 19-year-old Shannen, and we took her and planted her like proper now, I’d be a nerd and no person could be writing about me.”
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Lynn Elber, a longtime tv author, retired from The Related Press in 2022. AP journalists Alicia Rancilio and Mallika Sen contributed reporting.
