Better known for her off-screen antics than her on-screen acting, Doherty shot to fame in 1990 portraying an innocent adolescent on Aaron Spelling's teen soap
Beverly Hills, 90210. Yet the dark-haired, doe-eyed 19-year-old was already a show-business veteran, having spent the prior decade appearing in a number of TV series and a handful of films, including the dark cult comedy
Heathers, in which she played a high-school bitch, a fictional role that seemed to mirror her real-life persona. Gossip columns overflowed with tales about the off-camera drama Doherty caused with her cast mates on the set of
90210, and in 1994 she left the hit show. She remained in the spotlight, however, not because of the slew of campy TV-movies she headlined, but due to her tempestuous love life (romances with Judd Nelson and makeup heir Dean Factor; brief marriages to George Hamilton's son Ashley and to Paris Hilton's videotaping ex, Rick Salomon). In 1998 the wild child made a mature move by reteaming with Spelling for the series
Charmed, playing a sexy and sensible modern-day witch. Unfortunately, Doherty's bad backstage attitude did her in again, and she left the show after its third season. Unable to change her luck, she watched all of her subsequent projects fall apart, from the short-lived drama
North Shore (starring Brooke Burns, the ex-wife of Doherty's ex-lover/
Charmed costar Julian McMahon) to the sitcom
Love, Inc., from which she was axed before it even aired. She returned to TV in 2006 with the tasteless cable reality show
Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty.
Shannen Doherty Fast Facts:
- Michael Landon cast her as Jenny Wilder on Little House on the Prairie after he saw her performance in Father Murphy.
- Appeared in the Slaughter's "Real Love" video.
- Was featured in Playboy magazine in 1993, and was the cover girl in December 2003.
- Shannen Doherty Relationships:
- Ashley Hamilton - Ex-husband
- Chris Foufas - Ex-fiancé
- Dean Factor - Ex-fiancé
- Judd Nelson - Ex-significant Other
- Rick Salomon - Ex-husband
- Rob Weiss - Ex-significant Other
- Rosa Doherty - Mother
- Sean Doherty - Brother
- Tom Doherty - Father
