Shannen Doherty, 1971-2024

Beyond Brenda Walsh and the "Nasty Woman" Tabloid Fixture

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Cancer took the life of actor Shannen Doherty on Saturday. In December last year, Doherty started her podcast Lets Be Clear with Shannen Doherty. Though I knew she had battled cancer for nearly a decade, I didn’t know about her podcast despite my interest in women's autobiography and feminist disability studies. Among my research discoveries for today's post, I found this Entertainment Tonight clip.

My empathy for her continued medical trauma and exposed vulnerability thickens my sadness for her death. My research also led me to learn that she was one of the many Americans who did not have health insurance.

Doherty claimed a lapse in health insurance coverage may have played a part in the late diagnosis of her breast cancer that later metastasized to her bones and brain. Because of that lapse, she sued her accounting firm that was responsible in paying her Screen Actors Guild health coverage. The suit was settled out of court.

Now the obituaries and tributes for Doherty flood the internet. Here’s mine that features some clips of what I believe best showcase her talent.

Though I’m not a massive fan, I always admired Doherty’s work. She melted into every character she portrayed. Doherty's strength and fight to live remained to the end. She leaves behind a legacy beyond Beverly Hills 90210 and The Peach Pit. Along with increasing cancer awareness, Doherty supported animal rights and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation.

The Secret of NIHM

In 1982, she voiced Teresa Brisby, the daughter of Mrs. Brisby voiced by the late Oscar-nominee Elizabeth Hartman. Mrs. Brisby discovers why she and her children have immense intelligence and the evil behind NIMH. I remember watching the film as a child at a drive-in with my parents. You can watch the animated Don Bluth film here.

Little House on the Prairie

I had outgrown watching Little House on the Prairie by the time Doherty played the fictional Jenny Wilder who was an obvious stand in for Melissa Gilbert’s juvenile Laura Ingalls character years before.

I have also included a clip of Doherty’s co-star Michel Landon who displayed the same fight Doherty did in light of his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. Decades later on her podcast, Doherty said working for and with Landon was “still the best experience of [her] career.”

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

In this lighthearted, predictable but fun teen film, Girls Just Want to Have Fun had Doherty play Maggie Malene, the sarcastic and punk younger sister to Sarah Jessica Parker’s love interest.

Our House

Full disclosure: This family series bugged the shit out of me. And don’t even get me started on the pedestrian 1980s theme music. I watched the first episode and couldn’t change the channel fast enough when more episodes aired after that. But my aversion to the show wasn’t because of Doherty. In all honesty, I found her the best actor on the show in the one episode I managed to watch.

Heathers

In the 1980s cult classic Heathers, Doherty played the beta mean girl Heather Duke who steadily became the alpha mean girl as the film progressed. Doherty displayed her acting range in how Heather Duke metamorphizes from a bullied mean girl in the Heather clique to the dominant bully whose cruelty provokes a slap from Winona Ryder’s Veronica.

Mallrats

This is one of the few Kevin Smith films I haven't watched. The critical and commercial flop turned cult classic (a second cult classic film starring Doherty) starred Doherty as Rene, the girlfriend of slacker Brodie Bruce who becomes fed up with him and his lack of drive.

A Burning Passion

Doherty played the Gone with the Wind novelist Margaret Mitchell in the1994 NBC made-for-television film A Burning Passion that you can watch here. The film captured Mitchell’s early years, writing and life after the controversial novel’s publication.

Friends Til the End

In this cheesy Lifetime film, Doherty portrays another character named Heather. Here Doherty is Heather Romley, a college English major harassed by a stalker with an undiagnosed mental imbalance caused by her mother’s abuse. Doherty’s character is a young fiction writer. When she isn’t attending classes, Heather writes the lyrics for and performs in an alternative rock band. Doherty did her own singing for this role. I admit Friends Til the End is one of my guilty pleasures, and I always watch it whenever it airs.

Saturday Night Live

Doherty hosted when Saturday Night Live was starting to crash before a new cast helmed by Will Farrell revived it a few years later. The sketches overall were terrible in this episode, but in this sketch Doherty played Adam Sandler’s ex-girlfriend who he can’t just quite get over.

Charmed

For the first three seasons of Charmed, Doherty played Prudence Halliwell, the eldest of three witch sisters. Along with Brenda Walsh, Prue is one of Doherty’s best known characters. I never watched the series but selected this clip because it best demonstrates Doherty’s immense talent that directors and producers never put to full use in prestige films and series during her lifetime.

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