She’s got an acting resume as long as your arm, but she’ll forever be remembered as Brenda Walsh of “Beverly Hills, 90210” — which is ironic, considering she was only on the show for four of its ten seasons, but the residuals can’t hurt when it’s time to pay the mortgage, so one imagines it’s an irony Shannen Doherty is prepared to deal with.
Brenda Walsh was far from her first role, of course; Doherty first rose to prominence as Jenny Wilder on “Little House on the Prairie,” following it with appearances all over the television map: a “Magnum, P.I.” here, a “21 Jump Street” there — and oh yes, who can forget her turn in “Heathers”?
After her notorious exit from “90210” in 1994, Shannen hit the ground running, scoring a lead role in Kevin Smith’s “Mallrats” and a number of cheesy made-for-TV gigs before returning to the Aaron Spelling fold as Prue Halliwell in the witch-themed soap opera “Charmed.” It wasn’t long before she was making another untimely exit, however, and in the years since departing the show, she’s stuck mostly to TV movies, including the wonderfully titled “Satan’s School for Girls.”
These days, Shannen can be seen on the Oxygen network, hosting a reality series called “Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty.” It’s a far cry from her days as one of America’s reigning teen queens, but those syndication checks — and her 5% stake in “Charmed” — are probably more than adequate comfort.
Iconic Character – Brenda Walsh on “Beverly Hills 90210”
For many fans, Shannen’s role as Brenda on “Beverly Hills 90210” will always be a favorite. We highlihgted this character in our “TV Girlfriends” feature in the “Mean Girls” catagory. Here’s what we said about the character:
“When we met Brenda, she appeared to be a somewhat gawky, socially tentative Midwestern girl who was poised to be eaten alive by her new Beverly Hills schoolmates – but appearances can be deceiving, as said schoolmates quickly discovered. As it turned out, there was far more California vixen than Minnesota hausfrau in Brenda’s blood, and despite her snowy Nordic complexion, she quickly learned how to get down and dirty with the cattiest of the 90210 teens – from bumping uglies with local bad boy Dylan McKay after the spring formal to tricking a hapless doofus into thinking she was a French citizen named Brenda DuBois, Brenda was clearly operating at a level beyond that of her peers, and she proved it by ditching them for an acting career on the London stage before even graduating from college. Of course, she eventually returned to the sideburn-friendly zip code of her youth, rekindling her old love/hate relationship with frenemy Kelly Taylor (and promptly kicked off another love triangle between the duo), but just like everything else, she did it on her own terms – and she even adopted a trendy Chinese baby in the bargain. Dylan may be out of the picture, and she may be an older, wiser single mom now, but something tells us Brenda Walsh remains a woman not to be trifled with.”
Brenda Walsh – Supergirl
She looked damn good on this show!
Shannen Says
On important choices:
“To be a bitch or not to be a bitch, that is the question.”
On spirituality:
“If God wanted us to be naked, why did he invent sexy lingerie?”
On her driving skills:
“Look, I have good aim. If I really wanted to run him over, I wouldn’t have missed.”