Within minutes of my hitting the “publish” button on yesterday’s musing where I snarkily referenced we had been spared the “death comes in threes” psuedo-truth by a couple of inches, the news came from multiple sources that indeed a third celebrity had passed with a 24-hour period. This one, while all but unexpected given the gravity of the reality she was facing, felt that much more painful. Per CNN’s Lisa Respers France and Dan Heching:
Shannen Doherty, an actress who starred on the popular series “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Charmed” and documented her nine-year battle with breast cancer, has died, according to her longtime publicist. She was 53.
“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,” Doherty’s publicist Leslie Sloane said in a statement. “The devoted daughter, sister, aunt and friend was surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie. The family asks for their privacy at this time so they can grieve in peace,” her statement continued.
53 is far too young an age for someone to leave us, regardless of any past transgressions short of committing a felony worthy of the death penalty. Doherty’s rise to fame, as first a child star on LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE and as a teenaged co-star of the much-loved coming of age movie HEATHERS, only to be eclipsed by her co-starring gig on the OG BEVERLY HILLS, 90210, was at its peak dizzyingly meteoric. As the NEW YORK TIMES’ Katie Rogers recalled yesterday:
(I)t was her turn as Brenda Walsh on the high-school soap opera “Beverly Hills, 90210” that made her a star. Ms. Doherty, a green-eyed brunette with a heart-shaped face, played a Midwestern transplant who dated older men, chased the school bad boy and picked fights with her classmates. (“I was gonna maybe be in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ and now I’m sorta living it,” was one of Brenda’s choice romantic lines.)
And if you were one of the many fans who identified and/or romanticized with these star-crossed lovers, many of whom I’d see giddily cheering every time there was a FOX event where Doherty and the hunk that played said school bad boy Dylan McKay, Luke Perry, would show up, you came to understand why so many both adored and were frustrated by both her character and what they believed was her real life choices. Brenda Walsh’s character was polarizing, simultaneously catty and victimized by her combustible but impassioned relationship with Dylan, as the show’s FanDom Wiki recalled:
The story of Brenda and Dylan is an intense, passionate, whirlwind love – a deep and powerful connection between two young romantics. Their love inspired them and saved Dylan’s life in his struggle with alcohol and parental abandonment. Eventually, they grew into a Romeo & Juliet story as Brenda’s parents started a war against Dylan. This abandonment by his surrogate parents broke Dylan’s heart and he drifted away from the Walshes towards something more simple, and broke Brenda’s heart by cheating with her supposed best friend. Brenda eventually forgave them both, but she never stopped loving Dylan – and he never stopped loving her.
But that was apparently nothing compared to her real-life dalliances, as Rogers added:
Entertainment journalists found that drama was playing out behind the scenes as well, as Ms. Doherty developed a reputation for hard partying and house-trashing domestic disputes. Among other headlines, in 1993, People reported that Ms. Doherty had been served with a domestic violence restraining order after a boyfriend accused her of threatening him with a gun. There were rumors of fights between “90210” castmates, and Ms. Doherty was eventually written out of the show after its fourth season, in 1994. In 2014, Tori Spelling, Mr. Spelling’s daughter, who also appeared on the show, said in a TV special that she had asked her father to fire Ms. Doherty.
And I had if not’s a bird’s eye view to this, at least a bird’s flight path’s. During this time, my soon-to-be in-laws lived in a tony section of homes high above West Hollywood in an area called “The Bird Streets” where Doherty was renting a home with her first husband, George Hamilton’s nepobaby son Ashley. Despite being several blocks and many steep-hilled streets away, the topography allowed anyone on their block to clearly hear their merrymaking and especially their fights. My then-fiance and I were house-sitting on many nights where we’d hear the crashing of glasses rising above excessively loud music. Their neighbors would frequently brag about how they called the police on numerous occasions, mortified that their quiet neighborhood, which included the likes of HUSTLER magazine founder Larry Flynt, was being poisoned by these young nut jobs.
I had the opportunity to attempt to offer an apology for these yentas when I got the chance to do consulting for Doherty in early 2022, while her terminal cancer was in enough remission where she was in negotiations with an international producer for a co-starring role in a proposed straight-to-series family drama. A longtime producer friend was close with her manager, who I was warned was more than a bit controlling and volatile. The show’s producer was, per the manager, both notoriously cheap and personally insulting with what he saw was a lowball offer, offering her only recurring guest star status and a commensurate salary. I had an introductory conference call with the manager and Doherty where I offered what I thought would be a convincing strategy to reinforce exactly how significant the presence of someone with Doherty’s pedigree would be to the salability of a show that would be otherwise populated with European talent who were no-names in North America. The manager was far too busy spewing out his frustration while Doherty keenly asked questions and noted the mutual business associates we had in common. She offered to directly follow up with me on the development of this presentation while her manager was off fighting other battles.
Over the course of several weeks and several iterations, we evolved a short but what we saw as a compelling storyline that there would have not been any iteration of 90210, or for that matter MELROSE PLACE, without Doherty’s initial involvement and popularity. The same could be said for her follow-up series, CHARMED. Even though she left both shows before their conclusions, her success was integral to the value of both portfolios. I doggedly chased down credible sources in the international sales world to put a price tag on it. Tracking down long-retired executives I hadn’t spoken with in years was difficult enough. Getting them to concede to an actual number was far harder. Many hours and blind alleys later, I was able to get enough agreement to confidently offer the slides you see here. 
She was ecstatic. Her manager? He demanded why I didn’t produce actual contracts to prove it out. I explained that a) these executives had long since lost access to them and b) neither Warner Brothers nor Paramount would even think of providing them to anyone at this point without a subpoena. Over her protests, the manager cursed me out and vowed not to pay me a nickel for my efforts, despite our written agreement to the contrary.
At this time, I was frankly bogged down with other lawsuits. There seems to be quite a number of actresses who are involved with arrogant a-holes who think it’s OK to simply walk away from a monetary obligation to me, and there were only so many battles I was open to fighting.
A few days later, Doherty reached out to me for my Venmo address. In her e-mail, she offered her apologies, saying that she was in the midst of a lot of personal upheaval (as I learned from yesterday’s obituaries, she was in the middle of separating from her third husband, and her cancer was spreading, eventually to both her brains and her bones). While she claimed she couldn’t offer me what her manager had agreed to, she wanted to at least offer something for my troubles. The modest amount she sent was hardly as significant as the action of compassion she offered.
When I acknowledged the receipt of those few dollars, I offered Doherty that “apology” on behalf of her one-time neighbors. She replied, accompanied by a laughing e-moji. “Hon, I had some people call S.W.A.T. teams on me! And I probably deserved it at times. No worries. I’ve made some bad choices at times”.
Haven’t we all?
At least now she’s out of pain, hopefully at peace, and even more hopefully reunited with Perry, whom we also lost far too young five years ago. In hindsight, he treated her pretty darn well.
Until next time…