Shannen Doherty, a Beverly Hills 90210 star, has died at 53

Actress Shannen Doherty, who had a starring role in the hit shows "Charmed" and "Beverly Hills, 90210," passed away on Saturday following a protracted battle with breast cancer.

“It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty. On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease,” said Doherty’s publicist Leslie Sloane. She was 53.

Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and achieved remission two years later. However, this was temporary. In February 2020, court documents from a lawsuit Doherty filed against her insurance company revealed she was suffering from Stage 4 breast cancer, which had metastasized and was incurable.

In June 2023, Doherty disclosed that her cancer had spread to her brain.

Doherty's journey to Hollywood began quickly after her birth on April 12, 1971, in Memphis, Tennessee, where her father worked as a bank employee and her mother managed a beauty salon. Three years after her family relocated to Los Angeles, she made her acting debut at the age of ten on the brief television series "Father Murphy."

The television series "Our House," the 1985 movie "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," and the 1988 dark comedy "Heathers" are just a few of the productions where Doherty developed her skills.

 She used her background as a child star to land her biggest part to date in the hugely successful Aaron Spelling teen drama "Beverly Hills, 90210," where she played the feisty high school student Brenda Walsh. Playing the prim-and-proper yet impetuous Brenda Walsh in the early 1990s, Doherty, then 19 years old, sprang to fame as the program became a generation's guilty pleasure.

Despite her success, Doherty's career was not without controversy. She gained a reputation for being difficult to work with, particularly clashing with co-star Jennie Garth. After four seasons, she left “Beverly Hills, 90210” due to reported on-set conflicts.

Her big-screen comebacks came in the 1994 film "Almost Dead" and the 1995 film "Mallrats."

After a span of three years, Doherty and Spelling got back together for the television series "Charmed," where they portrayed three witch sisters alongside Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs.

After three years, she quit her part as Prue Halliwell on that show, and she went on to work on other films, such as "The Rendering" (2002) and "View of Terror" (2003).

 For seven episodes in the 2008 CW relaunch "90210," Doherty played Brenda again.

Her marriage to Ashley Hamilton, the actor George Hamilton's son, ended in divorce in 1994. Her marriage to Rick Salomon, which took place nine months after the wedding, was annulled in 2002. Doherty filed for divorce from photographer Kurt Iswarienko, her third spouse, in April 2023. The couple wed in 2011.

She is the second principal actor from “Beverly Hills, 90210” to die young, following Luke Perry's death in March 2019 due to complications from a stroke.