Shannen Doherty, Beverly Hills, 90210 actress, dies at 53

LOS ANGELES – Shannen Doherty, the raven-haired American actress known for playing headstrong characters in the 1990s television dramas Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed, and who had tried in recent years to shed her rebellious reputation, died on July 13 at her home in Malibu, California. She was 53.

The cause was cancer, her publicist Leslie Sloane said in a statement.

Doherty learnt she had breast cancer in February 2015 and had been open about her struggle with it.

In 2016, she shaved her head as a group of friends stood by, and in 2017, she announced that the cancer was in remission. It returned in 2020, and in June 2023, Doherty announced that the cancer had spread to her brain. In November, she said it had spread to her bones.

But she continued to work, and started a podcast that month.

“I’m not done with living. I’m not done with loving. I’m not done with creating. I’m not done with hopefully changing things for the better,” she told People magazine. “I’m not done.”

Shannen Maria Doherty was born on April 12, 1971, in Memphis, Tennessee, to Mr John Doherty Jr, a mortgage consultant, and Mrs Rosa (Wright) Doherty, a beautician.

By age 10, Shannen Doherty had established herself as a child actress, appearing as Jenny Wilder in 18 episodes of Little House On The Prairie (1974 to 1983) and acting alongside late actor Wilford Brimley and actress Deidre Hall in the NBC drama Our House (1986 to 1988).

Those were quickly overshadowed by her performance as the acid-tongued, red scrunchie-wearing Heather Duke in the 1988 movie Heathers, a campy comedy-thriller that starred actress Winona Ryder, actor Christian Slater and Doherty as students who fight for lunchroom domination as the body count begins to rise.

But it was her turn as Brenda Walsh on the high-school soap opera Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990 to 2000) that made her a star.

Doherty, a green-eyed brunette with a heart-shaped face, played a Midwestern transplant who dated older men, chased the school bad boy and picked fights with her classmates. (“I was gonna maybe be in Romeo And Juliet, and now I’m sorta living it,” was one of Brenda’s choice romantic lines.)

Full of catfights and relationship spats, the show offered a reductive glimpse into female adolescence. In one episode, Brenda dyes her hair blonde to catch a boy’s attention. The show, created by writer Darren Star and produced by prolific TV hitmaker Aaron Spelling, became an instant hit upon its debut.

The show also turned Doherty and her castmates into tabloid fodder.

Entertainment journalists found that drama was playing out behind the scenes as well, as Doherty developed a reputation for hard partying and house-trashing domestic disputes. Among other headlines, in 1993, People reported that she had been served with a domestic violence restraining order after a boyfriend accused her of threatening him with a gun.

There were rumours of fights between 90210 castmates, and Doherty was eventually written out of the show after its fourth season, in 1994. In 2014, actress Tori Spelling, Aaron Spelling’s daughter who also appeared on the show, said in a TV special that she had asked her father to fire Doherty.

The departure did not end Doherty’s career. She found roles in the movies Mallrats (1995) and Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), both directed by Kevin Smith.

She was cast in the TV series Charmed in 1998 as the oldest member of a sisterly coven of witches, co-starring with actresses Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs. Doherty left after three seasons amid reports of tension on the set and was replaced by actress Rose McGowan.

Doherty spent the 2000s trying to burnish her image as a reformed-but-still-bad girl, starring in a poorly reviewed reality TV dating show in which she helped women break up with their boyfriends. In 2008, she returned as an older, wiser Brenda Walsh for the series reboot of 90210.

In 2019, several members of the cast reunited for another reboot, BH90210, playing exaggerated versions of themselves as actors reviving a decades-old teen classic. Doherty said the project gave her an opportunity to clear the air.

“I have felt misunderstood my whole life,” Doherty told People that year. “The only difference is that now I’m okay with it.”

In recent years, she had shifted away from playing high-drama characters. In 2021, she starred in two movies for the Lifetime cable network, playing a mother in both.

Doherty’s marriages to actor Ashley Hamilton and poker player Rick Salomon ended in divorce. She filed for divorce from her third husband, Hollywood portrait photographer Kurt Iswarienko, in May 2023.

Doherty’s mother survives her. Complete information about her survivors was not immediately available.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2008, Doherty talked about the intense media coverage of her personal life.

“Nobody likes to read bad things written about themselves, and a vast majority of them were exaggerated or completely false,” she said. “But to be completely honest, I don’t even think about that any more. At some point, you have to move on.” NYTIMES