Remembering Beverly Hills’ “Bad Guys”

Fans are mourning the death of American actress Shannen Doherty at the age of 53 from cancer.

“It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty,” said her publicist Leslie Sloan.

Doherty enjoyed a screen career that spanned four decades as the star of hit television shows such as “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Glamour.”

Although Doherty and her characters often seemed to live in a more glamorous, beautiful world, she was always someone audiences could relate to on screen and a self-proclaimed “badass” in real life.

The Memphis-born star began acting as a child, appearing in TV series such as “The Voyager,” “Our House” and “Father Murphy” before joining the cast of the long-running “Little House on the Prairie” in 1982 as Jenny · Wilder.

Her first major film role was in 1985’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun, which also starred Sarah Jessica Peck and Helen Hunt.

Three years later, she played high school clique member Heather Duke in the 1988 hit teen drama Heathers, co-starring Winona Ryder, Lisanne Falk and Kim Walker.

In 2016, when a TV reboot was launched, Doherty played the mother of a new generation of Heathers.

In 1990, Doherty landed the biggest role of her career – playing Brenda Walsh in the original Beverly Hills, 90210.

The series follows a group of teenagers as they deal with relationship and family issues that have nothing to do with the glamorous Beverly Hills setting.

While filming the show in the 1990s, she gained a reputation as a troublemaker, with reports accusing her of violent feuds with fellow cast members.

“There were times when we wanted to claw each other’s eyes out,” Doherty’s partner Jennie Garth admitted in 2014. But as they grew older, the two became close friends.

Doherty admitted she had a hard time dealing with fame. “I was very confused about what I wanted and focused too much on it,” she said. “I don’t always handle it that well.

“In fact, I just shot myself in the foot because the more I resisted, the more celebrities took over as actors, and then the media ran with it.”

She told another interviewer: “If I were wiser and older, maybe my career would have gone in a different direction, but I didn’t. I started young and had the success of 90210 early on, And it was in my life that I was a petrified child.

Doherty left 90210 after four seasons, and Brenda was accepted into London’s prestigious Radha drama school.

As she grew older, the actress became more mature and private, but she still burnished her reputation with her 2010 semi-autobiographical book Badass, which encouraged young women to find their “inner badass.” ” and live with attitude and confidence.

Doherty went on to star in TV series including Charmed (about the three most powerful good witch sisters ever) and North Shore (set in a Hawaiian hotel). In 1995, she starred in the alternative film comedy “Mallrats”.

Off the screen, Doherty had a somewhat turbulent love life. In 1993, she met Ashley Hamilton, son of actor George Hamilton, and married him two weeks later, but they divorced just six months later.

In 2002, she married her second husband, Rick Solomon, but the marriage was annulled nine months later. In 2011, she married her third husband, Kurt Iswarienko.

As he grew older, Doherty became a passionate animal rights activist and participated in campaigns against animal cruelty.

As reality TV became popular in the 1990s, she also branched out into reality TV, and in 2010 she appeared on Dancing with the Stars, the American version of BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing.

Beverly Hills, 90210 remains her best-known role, and in 2008 she joined the cast of a new version of the series, reprising her role as Brenda Walsh. In the reboot, Brenda grows into a successful theater actress and stage director.

But in his personal life, Doherty began to struggle with his health.

In March 2015, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She initially announced her cancer was in remission in 2017, but it returned two years later.

At the time, Doherty was starring in another 90210 reboot, and she said she was keen to take part in the show in honor of her former costar Luke Perry, who died at age 52 from a stroke.

“For me, it was so weird to be diagnosed and then for someone who seemed healthy to go first,” Dougherty said. “It was really shocking. It was the least I could do to honor him. Just do that show.”

The latest version, called BH90210, brings new improvements to it. Rather than being a simple reboot, it follows Doherty and many of the other original cast members playing enhanced, parody versions of their true selves.

Doherty initially kept the relapse secret, choosing not to tell the rest of the cast besides Brian Austin Green.

“I had very anxious moments where I thought, ‘I really can’t do this,'” she explains. “Before filming, Brian always called me and said, ‘Listen, you know, no matter what happens, I’m going to support you.’ So Brian helped me through a lot of things.

In recent years, she has publicly documented her battle with cancer on social media, posting videos of herself working out alongside the hashtag #cancerslayer.

In November 2023, she said she was committed to fighting stage 4 breast cancer, which has spread to her bones.

In an interview with People, Doherty said she was determined to continue treatment, adding: “I’m not done living. I’m not done loving. I’m not done creating.”