Beverly Hills, 90210 & Charmed Star Was 53

Shannen Doherty, the actor known for her roles in films like Heathers and television series including Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed, has died at age 53.

“It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty. On Saturday, July 13th, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease,” Doherty’s publicist Leslie Sloane shared in a statement to PEOPLE on Sunday, July 14th.

Born April 12th, 1971 in Memphis, Tennessee, Doherty began acting as a child in the 1980s. She guested on Michael Landon’s Voyagers! and Father Murphy before he cast her as Jenny in Little House on the Prairie, which she appeared in until 1983. In 1985, she starred alongside Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. 

In 1989, Doherty got her first major film role by playing one of the infamous Heathers in the classic teen black comedy. From there, she jumped to Beverly Hills, 90210, where she played Brenda Walsh. Doherty’s character, the twin sister of Jason Priestly’s Brandon, was the lead for the first four seasons of the series, the first of its kind to popularize the teen soap.

Among a slew of made-for-television movies, the 1990s saw Doherty star in two lasting works: Kevin Smith’s 1995 film Mallrats, and Aaron Spelling’s series Charmed. In the latter, which ran from 1998 to 2006, she starred alongside Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano as the eldest of three sister witches. Before leaving the show in 2001, she was nominated for two Saturn Awards.

After appearing in a number of short-lived sitcoms and reality shows in the 2000s, Doherty reprised her role as Brenda Walsh in the 2008 reboot 90210, and again in the 2019 adaptation BH90210. 

In 2015, Doherty revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. After undergoing numerous treatments, she announced that she was in remission in 2017. Three years later, however, she announced that the cancer had returned and was in stage four. In 2023, she announced that the cancer had spread to her brain.