Doherty's gift was for wanting things on screen. As Heather Duke in Heathers she watches the top of the pecking order with an appetite the script barely needs to write, and television spent the next decade building series around that look.
Fi1m perspective
Watch Shannen Doherty in the early stretch of Heathers (1989). Kim Walker's Heather Chandler does the talking, Winona Ryder's Veronica does the flinching, and Doherty's Heather Duke stands half a step behind them with a face of open appetite, looking at the top of the pecking order the way a dog looks at a table. She has less to say than either of them and does not need it. Wanting things, visibly and without shame, was what she did on screen, and she did it better than most actors do speeches.
She had been at it since childhood. She was Jenny Wilder on Little House on the Prairie (1982–1983), with Michael Landon as mentor, and in the same year lent a voice to Teresa in Don Bluth's The Secret of NIMH (1982), a part too small for us to hear anything of her in it. Heathers was the breakout, and television took the hint. As Brenda Walsh in Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990–1994) she became the face of the thing for a generation, and left it amid reported trouble on set. Kevin Smith put her in Mallrats (1995) as Rene Mosier, and Charmed (1998–2001) gave her Prue Halliwell and let her direct three episodes. She returned for the 90210 revival (2008–2009) and kept working until her death in 2024.
The parts were nearly all the same part: headstrong, acerbic, quick to take offence, a young woman who says the sharp thing a beat before anyone can stop her. People noticed early that the person and the roles were hard to tell apart, and she did not fight it. "If you consider 'difficult' being a strong woman who sticks up for herself, yeah, I admit to it," she said in 1992. It is a good line and also a warning; the lateness and the clashes with co-stars on both her big series are part of the record, and both series ended for her sooner than they ended for everyone else. We laughed at Heather Duke more than Daniel Waters's script strictly allows, because Doherty plays every put-down as though she has rehearsed it in a mirror and is delighted it finally fits, and we felt a little sorry for her at the same time, which the film never asks of us.
The cinema never found much for her to do. Of the two films of hers we have reviewed, one gives her a voice and the other a supporting mean girl, and the second is the one to see. Start there, and count how much she gets done without a line.
Biography
Shannen Doherty was an American actress. Born on 12 April 1971 in Memphis, Tennessee, she began her career as a child performer with a recurring role as Jenny Wilder in the television series Little House on the Prairie (1982–1983) and a voice part as Teresa in the animated film The Secret of NIMH (1982).
She appeared as Heather Duke in the film Heathers (1989) and as Brenda Walsh in the series Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990–1994). Later credits include the role of Prue Halliwell in Charmed (1998–2001).
Doherty died on 13 July 2024.
