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

Doherty died Saturday, according to a statement from her publicist, Leslie Sloane. She had been suffering from breast cancer for several years.

“The devoted daughter, sister, aunt and friend was surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie. The family asks for their privacy at this time so they can grieve in peace,” Sloane said in a statement, which was first reported by People magazine.

Her illness was publicly revealed in a 2015 lawsuit she filed against her former business managers, alleging they mismanaged her money and allowed her health insurance to lapse. She later shared intimate details of her treatment after a single mastectomy. In December 2016, she posted a photo of her first day of radiation, describing the treatment as “horrific” for her.

In February 2020, Doherty revealed that the cancer had returned and was at stage four. She said she came forward because her health condition could have been revealed in court. The actor had sued insurance giant State Farm after his California home was damaged in a fire in 2018.

A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Doherty moved with her family to Los Angeles at the age of 7 and became an actress within a few years.

“It was completely my decision,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press in 1994. “My parents never pressured me into anything. They were supportive of me. It wouldn’t have mattered if I was a professional soccer player — they would still be just as supportive and loving.”

As a child actor, she worked steadily on TV series such as “Little House on the Prairie,” in which she played Jenny Wilder. She made her big screen debut as a teenager in “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Heathers.”

In 1990, the doe-eyed, dark-haired actress won her breakout role as Brenda Walsh in producer Aaron Spelling’s hit teenage melodrama, set in posh Beverly Hills. She and Jason Priestley’s Brandon, Brenda’s twin brother, were fish-out-of-water Midwesterners.

But Doherty’s fame came with media scrutiny and her anger, drinking and impulsive behavior – the latter following a very brief marriage to Ashley, the son of actor George Hamilton. Doherty’s second marriage, in 2002, was to Rick Salomon, who was involved in a sex-tape incident with Paris Hilton. The marriage was annulled within a year. In 2011, Doherty married photographer Kurt Iswarienko. She filed for divorce in April 2023.

He left “90210” at the end of the fourth season in 1994, reportedly after Spelling removed him due to conflicts with his co-stars and frequent delays.

But in a 1994 interview, Doherty described his life as peaceful.

“It should be, if you pick up the Enquirer and find that the only thing they can write about me is that I put a pay phone next to my house and I was seen buying $1,400 worth of bed linens in Stroud and I didn’t go to any high-end stores,” she said. “It should be cool if they’re getting that kind of stuff out of their minds.”

Three years later, in 1997, Doherty was sentenced by a Beverly Hills Municipal Court judge to anger management counseling after he allegedly smashed a beer bottle on a man’s windshield during an altercation. In another legal matter, he pleaded no contest after an arrest for drunken driving in 2001 and was ordered to serve a five-day sentence in a work-release program.

Doherty worked with Spelling again when he cast her as Prue Halliwell in “Charmed” in 1998. In an interview that year, the actor expressed regret about his past.

“I brought a lot of that on myself,” Doherty said. “I don’t think I can point fingers and say, ‘Oh, you’re to blame.’ And I don’t do that to myself either. Because I was just growing up.”

Doherty said her personality had been “grossly misrepresented” by the media.

Spelling said at the time that their relationship was never as bad as some made it out to be.

“We had a few bumps in the road, but my God, who doesn’t?” said Spelling, who died in 2006. “Everything Shannon did was blown way out of proportion by the rag sheets.”

Doherty co-starred in “Charmed” with Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano from 1998-2001, at which time her character was replaced by the one played by Rose McGowan. Doherty appeared seven years later in the “90210” sequel series alongside original series star Jennie Garth and competed on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2010. She also starred in the third “Beverly Hills, 90210” reboot, “BH90210,” a meta send-up of the original show that reunited most of the cast and aired for one season in 2019.

She also appeared in a tribute episode of “Riverdale” dedicated to that show’s star — and her late “Beverly Hills, 90210” on-screen boyfriend — Luke Perry.

Doherty struggled to regain her “Beverly Hills, 90210” star status but did appear in big-screen films such as “Mallrats” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” and TV movies such as “A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story,” in which she played the author of “Gone With the Wind.” Her worst film was “Blindfold: Acts of Obsession,” an erotic thriller with Judd Nelson.

Doherty’s lawsuit against her ex-business managers was settled in 2016. She has been open about the toll cancer has taken on her. She posted photos that showed her baldness after treatment and shared her fears in an August 2016 interview with “Entertainment Tonight.”

“The unknown is always the scariest part,” she said. “Will the chemo work? Will the radiation work?” she said. “The pain is bearable, you know living without a breast is bearable, it’s the worry about your future and how your future will affect your loved ones.”

Doherty advocates for cancer awareness and care, and spoke in 2021 about how spending years with the disease affected her life and sense of optimism.

“When you have a disease like cancer, your tolerance for drama goes down to zero. I don’t like people wasting my time. I don’t like negativity,” she said. “It’s weird because I think if you look back, you’re like, ‘Oh, gosh, there’s so much drama around her,’ but I don’t think I was necessarily into the drama. I think if we took 18-year-old Shannon, 19-year-old Shannon and took her to what she is now, I would be an idiot and no one would write about me.”

Lynn Elber, a longtime television writer, retires from The Associated Press in 2022. Reporters Alicia Rancilio and Mallika Sen contributed reporting.

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