Shannen Doherty, ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ star, dies at 53

Shannen Doherty, the raven-haired 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 Saturday at her home in Malibu, California. She was 53.

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

Doherty learned she had breast cancer in February 2015 and had been open about her struggle with it in the years since. In the summer of 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 April 12, 1971, in Memphis, Tennessee, to John Doherty Jr., a mortgage consultant, and Rosa (Wright) Doherty, a beautician. By age 10, Shannen had established herself as a child actress, appearing as Jenny Wilder in 18 episodes of “Little House on the Prairie” and acting alongside Wilford Brimley and Deidre Hall in the NBC drama “Our House.”

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 Winona Ryder, 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” 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 blond to catch a boy’s attention. The show, created by Darren Star and produced by prolific TV hitmaker Aaron Spelling, became an instant hit upon its debut on Fox in 1990.

“90210” 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 Doherty had been served with a domestic violence restraining order after a boyfriend accused her of threatening him with a gun.

There were rumors of fights between “90210” castmates, and Doherty was eventually written out of the show after its fourth season, in 1994. In 2014, 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.

Her departure did not end her career. Doherty 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 Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs. She left after three seasons amid reports of tension on the set and was replaced by 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 that 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 OK with it. But there have been moments where we’ve been able to talk about things.”

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

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

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