‘90210’ actor fought like hell to live

Shannen Doherty – the star of “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Heathers” and “Charmed,” among dozens of other credits – was a gifted actor who immediately captured your attention on screen. Her black hair, green eyes and slightly crooked teeth made her stand out even as a child: no one looked like her. And then her line delivery, with its powerful, sometimes awkward cadence, had viewers leaning in to listen. Doherty often looked angry; it was easy to think that maybe she was used to be angry.

Generation X lost an icon this weekend with the death of Doherty at the age of 53. She is the second cast member of “Beverly Hills, 90210” to die, after Luke Perry died of a stroke in 2019 at the age of 52. That is of course two too many. , but dedicated listeners of Doherty’s podcast “Let’s Be Clear,” and I am one of them, may be feeling particularly confused and bereft today. I listened not only as a journalist, observer and fan who had found her fascinating since her explosive fame in the early 1990s – but also as an acquaintance of Doherty who had spoken to her about cancer on a more personal level, having lived through my own story. cancer nightmare, with ovarian cancer.

On the June 23 episode of ‘Let’s Be Clear’ – just three weeks ago – an emotional Doherty told how she was given a new chemo drug, an IV, after years of taking pills. As she choked back tears, Doherty spoke honestly about how scared she was. But she also discussed her hopes, as her cancer cells had changed and there might be more protocols to try. “I’m probably feeling hopeful for the first time in a few months?” said Doherty in an upward tone. “Because there are so many more protocols now. While before I was hopeful, but I was still preparing.

Doherty’s hard-won optimism made the news of her death all the more shocking. Her breast cancer returned in early winter 2019, this time as metastatic stage 4 cancer, which is very serious; she even had brain surgery last year to remove the lesions there. But despite how dire things may have looked, Doherty was still moving forward in her career: Last week, she and her former ‘Charmed’ castmates Holly Marie Combs, Brian Krause and Drew Fuller announced they were joining their ‘House of Halliwell ‘ would add. Watch the show’s podcast again, and they would reboot it with her.

The questions about what happened with Doherty’s cancer treatment are small things to consider in the grand scheme of a life. But they’re the ones I’m worried about today. Because Shannen Doherty didn’t expect to die.

She leaves behind an extensive legacy. Doherty’s family moved to Los Angeles from Memphis, Tennessee when she was seven, and she began auditioning. Her first major role was in the final season of “Little House on the Prairie” at age 11, and she worked steadily from there.

In 1988’s “Heathers” — a film that has achieved such cult status, it’s hard to remember what a bomb it was — Doherty played Heather Duke, who spit lines at Winona Ryder like, “Veronica, why are you pulling my Dick?” And when Ryder’s Veronica asked her why she had to be such a “mega-bitch,” Doherty replied with her signature grin, “Because I can be.”

However, it was “Beverly Hills, 90210,” which premiered in 1990 to an audience of initially zero, that shot Doherty into the stratosphere. Fox’s teen soap, then a real novelty, revolved around Doherty’s Brenda and her twin brother Brandon (Jason Priestley) moving from Minnesota to Beverly Hills – and all the culture shock that came with it. Brenda and Brandon were our guides into this prosperous world, with its excesses and divorces, where teenagers and young adults gathered weekly for years to watch together as a ritual. The bickering over Brenda losing her virginity to Perry’s character Dylan McKay in season 1 made national headlines and was seen by some (hilariously!) as a breakdown-inducing end of civilization.

By and large, “90210” grew into superstars, and while I’m sure it wasn’t easy for any of them, the press was particularly fixated on Doherty. She probably did what most other young women in their early twenties did at the time, but she became a fixture in the tabloids, a notorious star in the pre-internet celebrity press: she was absolute hell, and it was literally spectacular to look at. . She came of age just as the paparazzi and tabloid press, who a decade later would stalk the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, began creating ongoing stories about young women as living train wrecks. Following Doherty’s antics was a sport – and it got nasty. Really mean.

I interviewed Doherty for the first time for the Los Angeles Times in the late summer of 2008, when she was set to guest star on the CW’s reboot of “90210.” She had been hesitant to agree to the interview – she understandably hated the press – but once we were in her trailer on set, we talked for hours. At the time, she was riding a wave of nostalgia that had welcomed her back into the public eye, having stepped back after leaving ‘Charmed’ in 2001. (The circumstances of her departure were hazy at the time: Doherty has since made it very clear she was fired.)

“90210” was filming at a high school in El Segundo, and Doherty seemed nervous at first. But once she got started, she opened up about how her father’s health — he had been ill with various heart diseases since she was a child — affected her at the time “Beverly Hills, 90210” reached its climax, both in terms of her ‘acting out’, as she put it, and of practical things, such as her persistent lateness. She went way further than I expected, in terms of revealing personal details, by speaking about her brief marriage to noted poker player Rick Salomon, who then became a public creep, infamous for both starring in and distributing his ‘1 Night in Paris’. ‘Paris Hilton sex tape. She brought it up out of the blue and seemed to want to talk about it. “It ended up being very embarrassing for me, and humiliating and disgusting,” Doherty said.

She gave off the vibe of wanting to put some things right, and mention them before I could even think about them. She seemed to regret her early fame and the way she had handled things without being defensive. She got teary-eyed and choked up a few times as we talked, but was also devastatingly funny.

We exchanged information (her email address was her dog’s name) and went out for dinner. She had somewhat inexplicably become involved with Pasadena Magazine and asked if I wanted to work there. (I didn’t, but it was nice of her to offer.) We talked about our shared love of gambling – she was an expert craps player, she said – and discussed crossing paths someday in Las Vegas . I had no illusions that this would happen: she was Shannen Doherty! We’ve lost touch. Evidently.

After she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, I closely followed her treatment, which was easy to do because she diligently documented it on Instagram. When she announced she was in remission in April 2017, I was in my own cancer hell, having been diagnosed with ovarian cancer the summer before. I sent her a DM when she tweeted her good news, briefly telling her about my own situation, and she wrote back, “I’m so sorry to hear this. Are you satisfied with your doctors? Mine are great. Saved so much. Researchers. Doctors. Best. I would like to connect you.” (It was a wonderful offer that fortunately I didn’t have to take up.)

I interviewed her again, in September 2021 in the context of Variety The question of women’s power, and she remembered that I had been sick, and we talked about cancer and chemotherapy, both of which are indescribable experiences. The story was about how productive she was as an actor that year, despite having stage 4 cancer: she had been in three films in a row and all she wanted to do was work. She had also directed a lifetime breast cancer PSA and planned to direct more.

“The best example I can continue to give to other people with cancer, and to the outside world that doesn’t have cancer,” Doherty said at the time, “is to show them what a cancer patient looks like. We are employable.”

I cheered her on from the sidelines while listening to “Let’s Be Clear.” The topics were as varied as they were, but I was interested in them all. She interviewed her doctors about her treatment – ​​so enlightening for those of us who don’t have this kind of access to our oncologists – and also welcomed friends like Sarah Michelle Gellar and director James Cullen Bressack. She chatted with people she’d worked with, like Priestley and Brian Austin Greene of “90210,” and “Mallrats” director Kevin Smith (they loved each other so much, it seemed). And she had a cathartic reconciliation with Tori Spelling, in which they cleared the air about everything that happened on “90210,” which of course involved Spelling’s father, Aaron Spelling, the powerful producer.

Not everyone got off easy: She indirectly alluded to her “90210” enemies without naming them, but it was easy enough to figure out. And with “Charmed,” Doherty blamed Alyssa Milano for her ouster, and her friend Holly Marie Combs agreed with her assessment. (Milano publicly denied he had anything to do with it, causing Doherty to double down.)

Doherty would also talk to her mother, and they would discuss Shannen’s childhood and their life together, as well as her illness. Today I think especially of her mother, whom she would call Mama Rosa. Sometimes it was just Doherty talking about how scared she was and how angry she was being dealt this hand. But then she bounced back and got back up. Her most recent guest was Katherine Heigl, and they bonded over standing up for themselves on sets, an assertiveness that was then twisted and misinterpreted to fit others’ stories of who they were.

It’s impossible to know how to end this essay because she wasn’t supposed to die now. The world is less exciting without Shannen Doherty in it.