Heather O'Rourke Biography

Fast Facts

• Discovered at age 5 by Steven Spielberg while she was eating lunch with her mother and agent at the MGM commissary; she initially rebuffed Spielberg's introduction by telling him she didn't talk to strangers
• Won the role of Carol Anne in Poltergeist (1982) after a second audition where she demonstrated how well she could shriek
• Appeared in commercials for Rainbow Brite and McDonald's
• Was elected 5th grade class president at Big Bear Elementary School
• Died at Children's Hospital and Health Center in San Diego of heart failure and septic shock during emergency surgery to treat an undiagnosed bowel obstruction
• Her mother sued Kaiser Permanente Hospital for medical misdiagnosis and was awarded an undisclosed sum after arbitration
• Buried in the same cemetery as her Poltergeist co-star Dominique Dunn