Shannen Doherty dies at 53: A look back at the 'Beverly Hills, 90210' actress' legacy, onscreen and off
The "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Charmed" actress turned breast cancer advocate died July 13.
Shannen Doherty, the raven-haired actress best known from TV’s Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed as well as movies that included Heathers, died on July 13 at age 53.
“It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty,” Doherty’s publicist Leslie Sloane confirmed to People. “On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease."
Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. The following year, she learned that it had spread to her lymph nodes. After a single mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, she entered remission in 2017. The cancer returned in 2019, as stage IV, and spread to her brain, necessitating surgery for the removal of a tumor in 2023. At the end of that year, she revealed that it had spread to her bones.
The TV icon was born in Memphis, Tenn., and got her break in 1982 at the age of 11 when she was cast in Little House on the Prairie as Jenny Wilder, the adopted daughter of Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder. She appeared on the ninth and final season of the show — as well as three primetime movies.
As she continued to grow up onscreen, her résumé expanded with the 1985 film Girls Just Want to Have Fun, playing the knowing little sister of Sarah Jessica Parker's dance partner. Doherty went on to build her episodic credits on TV’s Highway to Heaven, Magnum, P.I. and The New Leave It to Beaver. That led into a regular role on Our House, playing Kris Witherspoon opposite Wilford Brimley (as Gus Witherspoon) and Deidre Hall (as Jessie Witherspoon) for two years.
Doherty landed her first major film role in 1988’s Heathers, playing one of the snotty, popular Heathers in the dark comedy also starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. Off that success, she was cast in the soon-to-be iconic Aaron Spelling teen TV drama Beverly Hills, 90210. She played as Brenda Walsh, one of the Minnesota twins, along with Jason Priestley, who was transferred to the tony zip code in 1990.
On 90210, Doherty’s Brenda fell for Luke Perry's Dylan — going on to be part of one of TV's most famous love triangles with Jennie Garth. The show was a huge ratings success for Fox, earning Doherty and her castmates worldwide fame. Behind-the-scenes, there was drama as the young actors navigated stardom. Doherty developed a reputation for being challenging, leading to her abrupt departure in 1994. (She later made nice with her co-stars and appeared in the BH90210 reunion series in 2019.)
Of her reputation, Doherty infamously told People magazine in 1993, "I'm not saying I don’t have my moments of bitchiness because everybody has them. But it's never for no reason. I think that life is short, you should live it and be happy. I've always been a ballsy kid. I know it pisses some people off, but isn't the end result much better?"
By that point, Doherty's every move, marriage, feud, Playboy pictorial and arrest was documented in the press. Despite the rocky exit from 90210, Spelling later cast her in Charmed, which debuted in 1998 and also developed a cult following. She played Prue Halliwell, the oldest of three sisters who were witches, until 2001, amid a tiff with co-star Alyssa Milano.
"There was too much drama on the set and not enough passion for the work," Doherty told Entertainment Tonight at the time. "You know, I'm 30 years old and I don't have time for drama in my life anymore. To me, it's sort of whatever. I'll miss Holly [Marie Combs] a lot and that’s really the only thing I want to clear up."
She continued to work, trying new things — like hosting Scare Tactics (2003 to 2008) and appearing in the reality shows Breaking Up With Shannen Doherty (2006), Shannen Says (2012) and Off the Map With Shannen & Holly (2015). But she also revisited past roles, appearing on the CW spin-off 90210 (2008 to 2009), later in the BH90210 reunion series (2019) and in the Heathers TV show (2018).
She also competed in Season 10 of Dancing With the Stars, and appeared on Riverdale in 2019 for a tribute to Perry, who died that year after a massive stroke.
Perry's death is what got Doherty to join her Beverly Hills, 90210 co-stars for BH90210 in 2019. She explained at a press conference promoting the show, "When Luke passed away ... I felt like it was a great opportunity to honor him. And I'm really glad that I made that decision. ... We went on this amazing journey together where we also got to really sort of heal through losing somebody who means the world to all of us."
Doherty's final years were turbulent as she battled cancer and navigated through other personal woes. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. At the time, she sued her former management company for allowing her health insurance to lapse and miss routine mammograms and checkups in the years prior. In 2016, she learned that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and underwent a single mastectomy as well as chemo and radiation treatments.
There was good news in 2017 when she entered remission, and she underwent breast reconstruction. However, in 2018, Doherty lost her house to the Woolsey Fire. In the summer of 2019 — as she shot that BH90210 reunion series — her cancer returned and had worsened to stage IV. She initially kept it a secret, exposing it only in 2020 when she said it would be part of her lawsuit against her insurance company over the fire. In the suit, her attorneys stated that she was "dying of stage IV terminal cancer" and she was trying to live "out her remaining years peacefully."
In February 2023, Doherty learned the cancer had spread to her brain and underwent surgery to remove a tumor. Two months later, she filed for divorce from her third husband, Kurt Iswarienko. By November, she said the cancer had spread to her bones. Nonetheless, she was fighting and trying to get into a clinical trial.
"I'm not done with living," she told People. "I'm not done with loving. I'm not done with creating. I'm not done with hopefully changing things for the better. I'm just not — I'm not done."
While she fought for her life in her final years, Doherty used her voice as a cancer patient advocate. In 2016, the American Cancer Society honored her with its Courage Award for her bravery in publicly sharing her health journey. She appeared at cancer fundraisers. She used her voice to encourage women to get breast cancer screenings. She led discussions with other survivors. She launched the Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty podcast in December 2023 to discuss cancer as well as her life and career.
When Yahoo Entertainment spoke with Doherty in 2019, as she publicly advocated for annual mammograms, she told us that her cancer journey, as hard as it had been, had opened her heart.
"It allowed me to be more vulnerable," she told us. "I used to have a big wall around me and it was quite hard for me to let people in, and I found that cancer just ripped that wall completely down. Of course, you're sitting there, hooked up to an IV and you're getting chemo and you're throwing up and you really have to count on the people around you, whether it be family or the nurse who's administering [treatment], or the patient next to you who's going through the same thing, who’s like holding your hand through it. It just opens your heart, at least it did for me."
