In the pantheon of teen characters, no one was more suited to kickstart the little girl’s journey, as we all eagerly look to fit in and grow up, than Shannen Doherty. The actress, who died Saturday at age 53, was in her late teens when she played Brenda Walsh on “Beverly Hills, 90210,” and her experience echoes that of the character for which she is best known.
Brenda was a good-natured, baby-faced girl from Minnesota with a handsome twin brother who had moved with his family to the most famous and posh neighborhood in Los Angeles during her high school years. Doherty was a transplant from Memphis, Tennessee, who was discovered as a child while acting in a church play.
Brenda Doherty, who plays Brenda, has spent countless hours keeping us company on television, giving us an unforgettable and endearing portrayal of a teenager struggling with conflicting emotions, including insecurity, anxiety and rebellion. Her character was ambitious, ready to find her place among the elite of Los Angeles. “I won’t miss Minneapolis. Nobody knows me here, I can be anybody, I can be anybody,” Brenda says when we first meet her in the “90210” pilot.
Shannen Doherty is surrounded by her “Beverly Hills, 90210” co-stars Brian Austin Green and Ian Ziering in 2019.
(Chris Pizzello / Invision/AP)
Brenda started out as a sheepish character, but she was determined to fit in the moment she stepped foot at West Beverly High School. She quickly befriended cool girls Kelly (Jennie Garth) and Donna (Tori Spelling), while immediately developing a desire to emulate their confidence and style. At one point, as one of the few brunettes in a sea of blondes competing for a boy’s attention, she attempted to lighten her hair, burning it in the process. But over time, the new girl became the it girl when she began dating the coolest boy in school, Dylan McKay (Luke Perry). She also excelled at ignoring her parents’ advice and wishes, and drew us along as she developed an interest in the show.
Throughout the series, she illustrated what it was like to be a complex character, not only onscreen (Brenda was a rarity among teenage female characters of the time), but also offscreen. The vitriol toward Doherty and her character even spawned a newsletter called “I Hate Brenda,” which published gossip and anger about the actress, becoming a focal point for how people viewed strong, misunderstood women.
You can hate her one moment, like the time she slapped Andrea (Gabrielle Carteris) in drama class because she was jealous of Andrea’s closeness to the teacher, on whom she had a crush. And then cheer her on the next, like when she came to her friends’ defense at a sleepover after Kelly’s cool but mean friend Amanda tried to put them down. Or cry with her another, like when she broke up with Dylan after a pregnancy scare, forever changing how we feel when we hear REM’s “Losing My Religion.”
Re-evaluating her character today, we realize that we had her all wrong: She was just a young person trying to figure out life, making immature missteps and complaining while sometimes being annoying or mean in the process. Why didn’t we show her more leniency when she was betrayed by her best friend, who slept with her boyfriend while she was in Paris? “I thought you were my friends. I loved you. I trusted you both,” Brenda yells at them. “I hate you both! Don’t ever talk to me again.” While Brenda isn’t perfect and her actions sometimes deserve criticism, she often deserved more understanding. The same could be said of Doherty as she navigated fame.
Created by Darren Star and backed by prolific TV producer Aaron Spelling, “Beverly Hills, 90210” was an appointment viewing series that laid the foundation for the teen drama genre. The show was groundbreaking in its exploration of high school life, with its discussions of sex and class differences. It transformed its mostly unknown actors into superstars who drew crowds to malls. As Doherty rose to fame, she generated plenty of tabloid fodder — headlines covered backstage drama with her castmates, her reputation as a hard-partying girl and domestic disputes with her costars.
The show was an early and compelling hit for the rising Fox network, and it was ’90s television at its best. And like Brenda, Doherty That was one of the main reasons why. That’s why it’s impossible to imagine “Beverly Hills, 90210” without Brenda Walsh. But along the way, Doherty and the “bad girl” character Brenda played became intertwined, propelling her exit from the show after a difficult period. And again, reevaluating all of this with some distance, one wonders what we could have possibly had wrong with Doherty.
Shannen Doherty in 2010. Love her or hate her, the actress and her character deserved better.
(Evan Agostini / Associated Press)
She was axed in 1994 after the show’s fourth season. The final stretch was a rollercoaster ride with her character returning home after a brief stint at the University of Minnesota and casting rumors after she landed the lead role in a production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” at the fictional University of California, where the characters enrolled. When the show returned for its fifth season, Brenda’s absence was explained away by the fact that she had moved to London to study drama. It was an unsatisfying conclusion for Doherty and for a character who had so indelibly defined what it was like to be a teenager for a generation – love her or hate her, she deserved better.
The fact that Doherty and Perry both died in their 50s, about the same age as most of their early “90210” fans, is a sobering reminder of the passage of time for a generation that feels too old to be young and too young to be old. But there’s comfort in knowing that they live on forever as Brenda and Dylan, at least on screen and in our minds, driving to Baja against Brenda’s parents’ orders and dancing the night away. That was the power of their performances.
Not every actor gets to have a single character shine through in the zeitgeist the way Doherty did. She leaves a legacy that includes not only Brenda, but at least two other pop culture-defining roles: Heather Duke on “Heathers” and Prue Halliwell on “Charmed.”
Bad girl or not, there’s no denying the goodness of this.