Birth Name
Shannen Maria Doherty

Date of birth
12 April 1971
Memphis, Tennessee, USA


Spouse:

Ashley Hamilton (Married and divorced in 1992)



Shannen Maria Doherty was born April 12, 1971, in Memphis, Tennessee. The daughter of Tom, a bank employee, and Rosa, the owner of a beauty parlor, went from Memphis Belle, to Hollywood bitch. It turns out that Shannen has a lot to thank the late Michael Landon for. After her family moved to Los Angeles when Shannen was 7, she knew she wanted to pursue an acting career. Things moved quickly, and she made her debut at age 10, with a role on the series Father Murphy.

Michael Landon saw her on Father Murphy, and cast her as Jenny Wilder on the final season of Little House on the Prairie (she appeared on several made-for-TV Little House movies in the years that followed. Shannen was still doing the TV rounds with appearances on '80s shows such as Cagney & Lacey and Magnum P.I., and rejoined Michael Landon on an episode of Highway to Heaven. By the time she was cast in the 1986 series Our House, Shannen had appeared on the big-screen in Night Shift and Girls Just Want To Have Fun (with pre-pubescent Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt). Then in 1989, a grown up Shannen co-starred with Winona Ryder in Heathers.

But it was in 1990 that Shannen's life would take a major turn, when a little show called Beverly Hills, 90210 hit TV screens. The popular teen drama invaded the houses of pimple-faced and angst-ridden teens every week, and teenage girls everywhere related to Brenda Walsh, Shannen Doherty's character. After 4 years as the Minnesota-turned-Bev Hills twin, Shannen left the show, allegedly because of constant tardiness and fights with cast mates and producer Aaron Spelling. A tabloid favorite, Shannen became the girl everyone loved to hate, as her love life played like a Beverly Hills, 90210 episode and her personal life a Jerry Springer episode. She was engaged and separated to Dean Factor by 1991; engaged and separated to Chris Foufas by 1992; and married Ashley Hamilton (son of the always tanned George Hamilton) 2 weeks after meeting him, and they divorced after less than a year.

Shannen had a brief courtship with actor Judd Nelson after they met on the set of the 1994 film Blindfold, and in true Hollywood fashion, started dating director Rob Weiss, broke up with him, got engaged, and broke up with him again. Shannen appeared partially nude in Playboy in 1993 and 1994; got into an actual physical fight with a woman in a bar; and was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving on December 28, 2000, to which she pleaded innocent in March 2001. While her personal life has been making tabloid headlines, her professional career went more the way of a slew of Made-for-TV movies, including: Forever Young, Obsessed, Freeze Frame, Jailbreakers, A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story, and Sleeping With the Devil. She also starred in the cult-favorite Mallrats, and co-starred with Christina Applegate in Nowhere.

Shannen's TV star potential proved that it was going anywhere but nowhere, when she was cast in 1998 as Prue Halliwell in the WB's successful Charmed (working with Aaron Spelling once again). As part of a sexy sisterly trio of witches, along with Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs, Shannen proved that life after Beverly Hills, 90210 wasn't all that bad. On May 14, 2001, Spelling Television confirmed Shannen's departure from the show, allegedly due to on-set cattiness between her and Alyssa Milano.
 

Filmography


"Scare Tactics" (2003) TV Series .... Host
Hell on Heels: The Battle of Mary Kay (2002) (TV) .... Lexi Wilcox
Rendering, The (2002) .... Sarah
Another Day (2001) (TV) .... Kate
Beverly Hills 90210: The E! True Hollywood Story (2001) (TV) .... Herself/Brenda Walsh
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) .... Herself
Women of Charmed, The (2000) (TV) .... Herself/Prue Halliwell
Satan's School for Girls (2000) (TV) .... Beth Hammersmith/Karen Oxford
Celebrity Profile: Alyssa Milano (1999) (TV) .... Herself
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Adam Sandler (1999) (TV) .... Herself
Striking Poses (1999) .... Gage Sullivan
Playmate Pajama Party (1999) (V) (archive footage) (uncredited) .... Herself
"Charmed" (1998) TV Series .... Prudence 'Prue' Halliwell (1998-2001)
Seventeen: The Faces for Fall (1998) (TV) .... Herself
Ticket, The (1997) (TV) .... CeeCee Reicker
Nowhere (1997) .... Val Chick 2
Sleeping with the Devil (1997) (TV) .... Rebecca Dubrovich
Friends 'Til the End (1997) (TV) .... Heather Romley
Gone in the Night (1996) (TV) .... Cindi Dowaliby
Mallrats (1995) .... Rene Mosier
Almost Dead (1994) .... Katherine Roshak
Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story, A (1994) (TV) .... Margaret Mitchell
Jailbreakers (1994) (TV) .... Angel Norton
Blindfold: Acts of Obsession (1994) (TV) .... Madeleine Dalton
Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994) (uncredited) .... Herself
Women and the Pill: The Way it Works (1993) (TV) .... Host
Freeze Frame (1992) (TV) .... Lindsay Scott
MTV Video Music Awards 1992 (1992) (TV) .... Herself (presenter)
Secret of Lost Creek, The (1992) (TV) .... Jennie Fogle
Obsessed (1992) (TV) .... Lorie Brindel
Forever Young (1991) (TV)
MTV Video Music Awards 1991 (1991) (TV) .... Herself (presenter)
Idols (1991) (TV) .... Herself
"Beverly Hills, 90210" (1990) TV Series .... Brenda Walsh (1990-1994)
Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) (TV) .... Brenda Walsh
Heathers (1989) .... Heather Duke
Outlaws (1986) (TV)
Circus of the Stars #11 (1986) (TV) .... Herself/Trapeze artist
"Our House" (1986) TV Series .... Kris Witherspoon
Circus of the Stars #10 (1985) (TV) .... Herself/Trapeze artist
Other Lover, The (1985) (TV) .... Alson Fielding
Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985) .... Maggie Malene
"Robert Kennedy & His Times" (1985) (mini) TV Series .... Kathleen Kennedy (Part 1 & 2)
Little House: Bless All the Dear Children (1984) (TV) .... Jenny Wilder
Little House: The Last Farewell (1984) (TV) .... Jenny Wilder
Little House: Look Back to Yesterday (1983) (TV) .... Jenny Wilder
"Little House on the Prairie" (1974) TV Series .... Jenny Wilder (1982-1983)
Night Shift (1982) .... Bluebell
Secret of NIMH, The (1982) (voice) .... Teresa







Producer - filmography


Another Day (2001) (TV) (co-executive producer)


"Charmed" (1998) TV Series (co-producer)




Director - filmography

"Charmed" (1998) TV Series (episode "All Hell Breaks Loose") (episode "Be Careful What You Witch For") (episode "Good, The Bad and the Cursed, The")




Notable TV Guest Appearances

"So Graham Norton" (1998) playing "Herself" (episode # 4.25) 27 April 2001
"Roseanne Show, The" (1998) playing "Herself" 1998
"Beavis and Butt-head" (1993) playing "Herself, in a Video Clip" in episode: "Career Day" (episode # 5.11) 16 December 1994
"Beverly Hills, 90210" (1990) playing "Wendy Edwards" in episode: "The Time Has Come Today" (episode # 4.25) 23 March 1994
"Parker Lewis Can't Lose" (1990) playing "Herself" in episode: "Geek Tragedy" (episode # 2.22) 12 April 1992
"Dennis Miller Show, The" (1992) playing "Herself" 1992
"Life Goes On" (1989/I) playing "Ginny Green" in episode: "Corky's Crush" (episode # 1.12) 14 January 1990
"21 Jump Street" (1987) playing "Janine" in episode: "Things We Said Today" (episode # 4.12) 18 December 1989
"Arsenio Hall Show, The" (1989) playing "Herself"
"Outlaws" (1986) in episode: "Outlaws" (episode # 1.1) 28 December 1986
"Highway to Heaven" (1984) playing "Shelley Fowler" in episode: "The Secret" (episode # 2.9) 27 November 1985
"Airwolf" (1984) playing "Phoebe Danner" in episode: "Bite of the Jackal" (episode # 1.4) 4 February 1984
"Magnum, P.I." (1980) playing "Ima Platt" in episode: "A Sense of Debt" (episode # 4.8) 1 December 1983
"Phoenix, The" (1982) playing "Little Girl" in episode: "One of Them" (episode # 1.2) 2 April 1982
"Cagney & Lacey" (1982)
"Father Murphy" (1981) playing "Drusilla Shannon" in episode: "By the Bear That Bit Me: Part Two" (episode # 1.6) 8 December 1981
"Father Murphy" (1981) playing "Drusilla Shannon" in episode: "By the Bear That Bit Me: Part One" (episode # 1.5) 1 December 1981