Shannon Doherty Was So Much More Than A Beverly Hills 90210 Star

I met Shannon Doherty outside her trailer when they were filming the TV show Charmed.  She was twenty-nine years old, an actress who had found fame early in her life and, it seemed to me, struggled to live with it. “I don’t want to do another TV show,” she told me at the time.  Although she went on to do many more.
I remember being surprised by her warmth. This had not been her reputation. The so-called ‘Wild Child’ and mean girl star of Aaron Spelling’s Beverly Hills 90210, seemed more like the kind of woman you’d want to have as your friend.  Someone who’d stand up for you, and tell you like it is.  “If you consider ‘difficult’ being a strong woman who sticks up for herself, yeah, I admit to it,” she told me.
She died at her home July 13, age 53, after struggling with cancer for nearly a decade. Those difficult years were further troubled when her home, a ranch in Malibu where she kept her beloved dogs and horses, was destroyed in the 2018 Woolsey fire, and she later divorced her third husband Kurt Iswarienko.
“She was one of the strongest people I have ever known,” says Jenni Garth, Doherty’s costar on Beverly Hills 90210.
Although I only met her briefly, I can’t think of a better description of Doherty.  It was her fiery strength and determination which got her noticed by directors.  It was what got her into acting in the first place, landing a role in Little House on the Prairie at the age of ten and later as mean girl Brenda in Beverly Hills 90210 at eighteen.
It seemed to me when I met her, was that it was her success which had presented her with her greatest challenges. Beverly Hills 90210 was such a phenomenon that Doherty was suddenly on the covers every magazine around the world.  Everything she did was scrutinized. “I never partied as much as everyone said,” she told me.  “Most kids do it at college. But I never went… If you are in the public eye, it’s suddenly a big deal.”  Audiences also seemed to be unable to distinguish her from the bitchy TV character she played. She was sent copies of a “We hate Brenda” newsletter that circulated among the show’s fans. As a young woman, it must have been very difficult to avoid being shaped by it.
Her own youthful impulsivity did not help her.  Her first marriage to Ashley Hamilton after knowing him for only two weeks made headlines everywhere.  “I can never come up for an excuse for it,” she told me.  “It was by far the largest mistake I made. But I did learn from it.  I learned to not be so impulsive.”
It was that honesty and vulnerability which made her such a likeable person.  And she was immensely likeable.  Contrary to the character she found fame playing, she was never a mean girl. She was a victim of what happens when male TV writers pit women against each other in TV dramas and audiences confuse acting with real life.   In real life, she was kind and supportive of others. I hope that she found peace.
You can read my 2005 interview with her on www.lucybroadbent.net