Shannen Doherty's incredible rise from child star to a generation's TV 'It girl'

Shannen Doherty, who rose to fame in the pioneering '90s teen dramas Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed and spent years as a health advocate, has died.

The beloved American actress and podcaster died after a long and courageous battle with cancer. She was 53.

"The devoted daughter, sister, aunt and friend was surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie," Doherty's publicist Leslie Sloane said in a statement.

Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and aftertreatment she announced she was in remission two years later.

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However, the insidious disease returned in 2019, with the Heathers star revealing she had stage 4 breast cancer. By June 2023 the cancer had spread to her brain and was terminal. Four months later it had spread to her bones.

Despite her diagnosis, Doherty continued to fight, telling People in November 2023 that she was not ready to give up.

"People don't know a lot about cancer. I think they just sort of assume that it means you can't walk, you can't eat, you can't work. People put you out to pasture at a very early age. 'You're like done, you're retired', and we're not," Doherty said.

"We're librant, we have such a different outlook on life. We're just so grateful for every second, every hour, every day that we get to be here."

From rising star to '90s icon

Born in Memphis Tennessee, Doherty was the youngest of two children to father John, a former banker and mother Rosa, a former beauty salon owner. 

From birth her parents wanted her to stand out from the crowd, choosing to alter the spelling of her first name on her birth certificate.

"They wanted me to be different," she told The Washington Post in May 1991.

She began acting at age 10 after her family upped stumps and moved to Los Angeles where her father started a transportation business.

Her earlier roles included Disney Channel films and TV movies, including 1981's Father Murphy and long-running TV series Little House on the Prairie.

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By the mid-to-late 1980s, she had a starring role on TV series Our House and was cast in the now cult dark comedy Heathers, opposite Winona Ryder and Christian Slater.

Yet, it was Beverly Hills, 90210 that made a then 19-year-old Doherty an international household name. 

On the show, which centred on young people living in the affluent Hollywood postcode, Doherty played Brenda Walsh, a strong-willed and rebellious teenager. 

"There is a very deep gratitude and appreciation for 90210, for everything that it provided for me, for the opportunities that it gave me," Doherty reflected to Variety in 2019.

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"I feel very blessed that I was a part of this show that made such an impact back in the '90s, that really took a stance on a lot of issues that weren't being discussed at that point in time, and we were brave."

Truth behind the 'bad girl'

During her time on the show, Doherty's personal life made headlines after, at just 22, she married actor Ashley Hamliton in September 1993. They filed for divorce in 1994.  

Doherty remained on 90210 four seasons before the public attention, claims of on-set feuds and gaining the 'bad girl' moniker in the press led her to quit the show in 1994.

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She described it as being an incredibly difficult time to read about herself in the media, with "probably 85 per cent to 90 per cent of it isn't true". 

"It becomes a snowball effect, and you can't seem to get away from it. And it's honestly travelled with me for a large chunk of my career," she said. 

"There's also a little bit of trepidation about going back into 90210 because it seems to be that show that triggers old responses or old behaviour from journalists.

"It's as if 90210 makes other people go back to the '90s and think that everybody is exactly the same as they were then and that none of us have grown."

As for reports of in-fighting with the show's original cast, Doherty told People in August 2019 that she "felt misunderstood my whole life".

"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," she said.

A Charmed return

Four years after Doherty quit the Darren Star and Aaron Spelling project, she returned to the fray in Spelling's Charmed.

She did not immediately jump at the opportunity to work with the late US film and TV producer, tossing the script into the backseat of her car after reading his name. 

It was Doherty's Charmed co-star, Holly Marie Combs, who ultimately convinced her to consider the role.

"And I said, 'Actually this one is pretty good. You'll probably like it,'" Combs recalled in December 2023 in an episode of the Let's Be Clear with Shannen Doherty podcast.

"And you said, 'No, it says Spelling on it.' And I said, 'I know I understand. But if they sent it to you, that means they want to work with you on it and it might be a good thing.'"

Doherty's run on Charmed lasted three seasons, claiming she had outgrown the show. Yet persistent 'on-set feuding' claims again followed her.

"There was too much drama on the set and not enough passion for the work," she told Entertainment Tonight in 2002.

"You know, I'm 30 years old and I don't have time for drama in my life anymore."

That same year, Doherty tied the knot for a second time, marrying US high-stakes poker player, Rick Salomon.

Yet, it wasn't a perfect match, with the union annulled after just nine months.

Working against the odds

After spending a number of years in the TV movie wilderness, Doherty appeared in 11 episodes of the 2004 TV series North Shore. 

In 2008 she returned to the role that made her a star, appearing in a guest capacity as Brenda Walsh in the first reboot of 90210.

Doherty married for a third time in 2011, when she wed photographer Kurt Iswarienko on a private estate in Malibu.

By 2015, Doherty's life was turned around when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

After a lengthy period of medical treatment and surgery, in 2017 she announced the disease was in remission. Yet by 2020 the cancer had returned and was stage 4.

She remained true to her desire to not give up, appearing in her late 90210 co-star, Luke Perry's Riverdale and the 2021 action film Fortress alongside Bruce Willis.

Doherty remained close with a number of her former '90s castmates, particularly Brian Austin Green, who played David Silver on the show.

"She's strong, she's honest, she just perseveres. She gets through whatever's going on, and even if it's hard, she will share that," Green told ET in November 2023.

"I think it benefits people that are around her to see somebody going through a difficult situation and still keeping her head up."

Green made the comments after Doherty was given a standing ovation from the crowd during a panel for Beverly Hills, 90210 at a '90s Con in Tampa Florida the same month. 

'I'm not afraid of death'

In June 2023, Doherty announced through her social media channels that her cancer had spread to her brain. In October, the disease had reached her bones.

"I think of it as the Pacman video game where they start to go into your bones, but we're on a really good regimed now and it's working well for me, so, day by day, month by month, year by year," she told People.

"It's been hard. It's also been really beautiful." 

She told the media outlet that since battling the disease she's learned a lot, particularly about people.

"I've learned that sometimes people are great going through it initially and then sometimes they hit a wall and they can't keep going through it with you," she said. 

"I've learned some people are very scared of it, some people are warriors themselves and look at it as 'this is what I'm going through with this human being, it's worth every second'.

In December 2023, Doherty claimed she discovered her husband Iswarienko had been having an affair just before she underwent brain surgery.

"I didn't think I was going to make it [through the surgery]... I thought I was going to lose the ability to walk or talk," she said on her podcast.

"I went in after I found out that my marriage was essentially over, that my husband had been carrying on an affair for two years.

"To not go in that surgery, even though, being very clear, he wanted to go, I couldn't go into that surgery with him there. I felt so betrayed."

Doherty and Iswarienko reportedly separated in January 2023, with her mother, brother Sean and friends helping her through.

"I'm not afraid of death because I know where I'm going. I know the people that I'm going to see. I think I'd be afraid of death if I wasn't a good person but I am. "I don't want to die. I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to die. Like, ever," she laughed.

"I'm not done with living, I'm not done with loving."