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Shannen Maria Doherty (/ˈdoʊ.ərti/; April 12, 1971 – July 13, 2024) was an American actress. During her career in film and television, Doherty played several notable characters, including Jenny Wilder in Little House on the Prairie (1982–1983); Maggie Malene in Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985); Kris Witherspoon in Our House (1986–1988); Heather Duke in Heathers (1989); Brenda Walsh in Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990–1994), 90210 (2008–2009), and BH90210 (2019); Rene Mosier in Mallrats (1995); and Prue Halliwell in Charmed (1998–2001).
Early life
Shannen Maria Doherty was born on April 12, 1971, in
Memphis, Tennessee, to Tom and Rosa Doherty. She was raised in her mother's
Southern Baptist faith.
Career
Child acting:
1982–1988
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In 1982, Doherty had guest spots on TV series including
Voyagers! and Father Murphy, which was created and produced by Michael Landon.
The same year, 11-year-old Doherty won the recurring role of Jenny Wilder on
Little House on the Prairie, which Landon starred in and produced. Doherty
appeared in 18 episodes in the final season of the show, which was cancelled in
1983.
Doherty lent her voice to the animated film The Secret of
NIMH in 1982. She appeared in an episode of Magnum, P.I. ("A Sense of Debt"), followed by an early episode of
Airwolf ("Bite Of The Jackal"),
for which she was nominated as Best Young Actress: Guest in a Series at the 6th
Youth in Film Awards in 1984.
In 1985, Doherty starred as Maggie Malene in the teen movie
comedy Girls Just Want to Have Fun alongside actresses Helen Hunt and Sarah
Jessica Parker. Doherty was cast as the oldest Witherspoon sibling, Kris, on
the family drama Our House, which ran from 1986 to 1988, a role which garnered
her a Young Artist Award nomination.
Fame: 1988–2001
Doherty's first major motion picture role was in the dark
comedy Heathers, which premiered in 1988. She garnered worldwide attention and
fame for her breakout role as Brenda Walsh in the Aaron Spelling–produced TV
series Beverly Hills, 90210 in 1990. In 1991 and 1992, her portrayal of Brenda
earned her a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Young Actress Starring in a
Television Series. Doherty left the show after the fourth season in 1994.
She appeared nude in Playboy magazine, first in December
1993, followed by a spread in March 1994. She posed for the magazine again in
December 2003 and was featured in a 10-page pictorial.
Doherty's career afterward primarily consisted of made-for-TV
movies, although she also had a lead role in Kevin Smith's 1995 film Mallrats
and later cameoed in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. In 1998, Spelling again
cast her in another of his television series, Charmed, in which she played one
of the lead characters, Prue Halliwell, the oldest of three sisters who are
witches. Doherty also directed three episodes for the series during the second
and third seasons. Doherty left the show in 2001 at the end of the third
season, resulting in her character's death. Reportedly, her departure was
caused by on-set and off-set tensions between Doherty and co-star Alyssa
Milano. In 2004, E! placed Doherty at number 10 on their list of the 50 Most
Wicked Women of Prime Time. In 2007, AOL named Prue Halliwell the 9th greatest
witch in television history.
Later work: 2002–2024
In 2003, Doherty hosted the Sci-Fi Channel candid-camera
show Scare Tactics during its initial season. From 2004 to 2005, in a return to
her prime-time soap roots, Doherty starred as a regular on the short-lived TV
series North Shore, as Alexandra Hudson. Later in 2005, she was in the pilot
for a comedy, Love Inc.
In 2006, Doherty produced and starred in her own reality
show, Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty, which premiered on the Oxygen channel.
In the show, Doherty carried out the "dirty
work" for members of the public, including dumping boyfriends or
telling people what their friends really think about them. The show was
canceled after one season due to poor ratings.
During 2007, Doherty appeared in two television projects.
She first appeared in Kiss Me Deadly: A Jacob Keane Assignment for the Here TV
network and followed up with a starring role in the holiday film Christmas
Caper for ABC Family. That same year, Doherty also set up a production company
called No Apologies, with which she planned to develop a TV drama for herself.
Later in 2007, Doherty was ranked number 96 on Entertainment Weekly's list of
the 100 Greatest Television Icons.
Also in 2008, 14 years after her last previous television
appearance as Brenda Walsh, Doherty joined the cast of the Beverly Hills, 90210
spin-off for The CW Television Network for a reported $40,000–50,000 an
episode. She returned as a guest star in the new series, reprising her old role
of Brenda in four of the initial six episodes. Her character, now a successful
theater actress and stage director, returned as the guest director of the high
school musical. After her initial guest spot was completed, Doherty stated she
was open to returning to the series later in the season and eventually agreed
to appear in three additional episodes, including an airing in May 2009. The
writers were eager to have her share scenes with Jennie Garth, who reprised her
own 90210 role of Kelly Taylor. It was reported that Doherty and Garth's
characters would both have a romantic interest in the character Ryan Matthews
(Ryan Eggold), reminiscent of their old rivalry for former bad-boy character
Dylan McKay (Luke Perry). Doherty and Garth later confirmed that the reports
about the love triangle between their characters were false.
In late 2008, Doherty was announced to co-star alongside
Dylan McDermott in the independent film Burning Palms, a satire based on Los
Angeles stereotypes told through five intertwining storylines. The film's world
premiere was at the Newport Beach Film Festival in April 2010.
Doherty starred in Fearnet's animated web series Mari-Kari,
which launched on June 3, 2010. Mari and Kari are identical twins, but Kari is
already dead and is a ghost. Doherty voiced both Mari and Kari in the eight-episode
show.
On July 21, 2011, WE TV announced that Doherty would star in
a one-hour reality series that would follow her and her fiancé, Kurt
Iswarienko, as they planned their wedding. The show, Shannen Says, premiered on
April 10, 2012.
On July 24, 2014, it was announced that Doherty and her
former Charmed co-star Holly Marie Combs would star in their own road-trip
reality show called Off the Map with Shannen & Holly, which premiered on
Great American Country on January 2, 2015. The six-episode series followed the
pair traveling across the southeastern United States, with stops in Kentucky,
Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Viewers were able to
vote on activities in which Doherty and Combs engaged at each destination on
Great American Country's official website.
In November 2016, Doherty joined the cast of a Heathers
television series, originally set to air on Paramount Network in March 2018.
She played the mother of one of the new generation of "Heathers", different from the character of Heather Duke
that she originated in the 1989 film. However, the Parkland school shooting
affected the show's premiere, which was delayed because of its dark tone and
themes of high school violence. In June 2018, the network chose to pull the
show altogether. Ultimately, the series aired over five nights in October 2018.
Doherty once more reprised her role of Brenda Walsh for the
six-episode sequel BH90210, which debuted August 7, 2019, on FOX. The same
year, she was in the movie Undateable John, starring Daryl Hannah, Tom Arnold,
and Margaret Cho.
In 2021, she was in the movie Fortress starring Jesse
Metcalfe, Bruce Willis, Chad Michael Murray, and Kelly Greyson. The film was
released in select theaters and on video on demand by Lionsgate Films in
December 2021.
Personal life
In early 1993, Doherty was briefly engaged to Max Factor
heir Dean Jay Factor before he filed for a restraining order on May 25, 1993.
He alleged physical violence and threats on the part of Doherty, although
Doherty's father claimed that the abuse came from Factor and not her.
On October 11, 1993, Doherty married Ashley Hamilton, the son
of actors George Hamilton and Alana Collins. They filed for divorce in April
1994.
In 2002, Doherty married Rick Salomon, but the marriage was
annulled after nine months. On October 15, 2011, Doherty married photographer
Kurt Iswarienko in Malibu, California.
In November 2018, Doherty lost her house to the Woolsey
Fire.
In April 2023, Doherty announced that she had filed for
divorce from Iswarienko. As of October 2023, the couple was almost finished
with their divorce proceedings, though in June 2024, it was reported that
Doherty had stated in legal filings that her husband was attempting to prolong
their divorce to avoid spousal payments. In response to those reports,
Doherty said in her Let's Be Clear podcast that divorcing under the public eye
was "exhausting" and that
she might or might not openly discuss her marriage after her divorce was final.
The terms of her divorce agreement were finalized the day before her death, and
a Los Angeles judge declared the couple officially divorced two days after she
died.
Doherty had no children.
Doherty was a registered Republican. According to Complex
magazine in 2012, she said: "I
realize that the majority of people in the entertainment business happen to be
Democrats. I have no problem with that. And they should have no problem with
the fact that I'm a Republican."
Public image
During the time she was working on Beverly Hills, 90210,
Doherty gained a reputation in the media for bad behavior that dominated her public
image for many years. People magazine called her the "iconic Hollywood 'bad girl' of the nineties". Between
1992 and 1994, coverage alleging fighting between Doherty and her co-stars
dominated tabloid headlines, particularly concerning her heated feud with
Jennie Garth, and further reports of heavy partying, on-set lateness, and
physical fights. The zine Ben Is Dead, which published a newsletter called "I Hate Brenda" at the height
of the show's popularity, even opened a hotline called the "Shannen Snitch Line", to which people could call in and report
gossip about Doherty.
This reputation gained further ground during her three
seasons on Charmed, when tabloids fueled rumors of a feud between Doherty and
her co-star Alyssa Milano. In both instances, Doherty acrimoniously departed
from the shows after a few seasons; on Charmed, she was allegedly fired by
producer Aaron Spelling after he received an ultimatum from Milano.
90210 executive producers Darren Star and Charles Rosin both
confirmed that Doherty was difficult to work with on-set; Rosin commented that "... she had habitual lateness. Her
lateness was appalling, and she had a callous attitude and an
indifference." Years later, Jennie Garth said of her relationship with
Doherty, "There were times that we
loved each other and there were times that we wanted to claw each other's eyes
out". At one point in 1993, an argument between Doherty and Garth on
the Beverly Hills, 90210 set escalated into physical violence. Nonetheless,
Garth said the feud was mutual and based more on immaturity than true
animosity, and that the two had gone on to become friends. Doherty, for her
part, admitted to making mistakes, blaming her behavior on the pressures of
fame, her youth, and problems in her personal life. In 2010, she stated: "I have a rep. Did I earn it? Yeah, I
did. But, after a while you sort of try to shed that rep because you're kind of
a different person. You've evolved, and all of the bad things you've done in
your life have brought you to a much better place."
Her dysfunctional reputation inspired the Billy
Bermingham–written satirical farce Shannen Doherty Shoots a Porno: A
Shockumentary, which featured Alexandra Billings and was performed at Chicago's
Torso Theatre from 1994 to 1997.
Health problems and
death
In 1999, Doherty revealed that she had been diagnosed with
Crohn's disease.
In March 2015, Doherty was diagnosed with stage III breast
cancer, which had spread to her lymph nodes. According to Doherty, her employer
at the time had failed to make her insurance payments on time, causing her
coverage to lapse from 2014 to 2015, and resulting in the cancer not being
diagnosed until it had already spread significantly. In February 2016, Doherty
revealed that she was receiving anti-estrogen treatment to shrink the tumor and
enable treatment by lumpectomy rather than mastectomy. The presence of multiple
tumors meant that a lumpectomy was not possible, and a unilateral mastectomy
was performed in May 2016. Surgery revealed that some of the cancer cells may
have spread beyond the lymph nodes. Because the cancer was more advanced than
previously thought, Doherty underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy following
surgery. On April 29, 2017, Doherty announced that her cancer was in remission.
On February 4, 2020, Doherty announced that her cancer had
returned a year earlier, which had metastasized in her liver and had advanced
to stage IV. In October 2021, Doherty provided an update on her cancer
treatment during an interview with Juju Chang of ABC News. In June 2023, she
announced that the cancer had spread to her brain and was terminal. In November
2023, she revealed that the cancer had spread to her bones. In January 2024,
Doherty shared that she was undergoing a new cancer treatment and that it was
successfully breaking through the blood–brain barrier, mistakenly calling it a
miracle.
On July 13, 2024, Doherty died from cancer at her home in
Malibu, California, at age 53. According to Doherty's wishes, she was cremated.
Filmography
Notes
Doherty filed for
divorce in April 2023, but the divorce was finalized shortly before her death. A
Los Angeles judge declared the couple officially divorced two days after she
died.
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