shannendoherty-fans

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A Christmas gift

Lovely Yvonne sent me some 1990s Shannen clippings that I'll be sharing here little by little.

This undated one, from Ca. late 1993/early 1994 is from when Shannen Doherty, Tori Spelling and their boyfriends Dean Factor and Nick Savalas spent the weekend at the Cabo Wabo rock'n'roll club in the tiny resort of Cabo San Lucas in Mexico.

The actresses went on the stage wirh rockers Sammy Hagar and Stephen Stills in this rock'n'roll club owned by the heavy metal band Van Halen.

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October 1995 - Cleo Magazine

Talking to... Shannen Doherty

She came to the world's attention as the wholesome Brenda in 90210, but made her mark as the brat of Beverly Hills. Now Shannen Doherty wants us to believe she'd make the perfect mother. By Eric Clarke

ACTRESS SHANNEN DOHERTY, at only 24, is a household name the world over. Thanks to a role in TV's Little House: A New Beginning when she was just 11, Shannen went on to play one of the bitchy Heathers in the quirky movie Heathers in 1989, and then rocketed to success as Brenda Walsh in the TV series Beverly Hills 90210.

Shannen's success on screen, however, was seriously tainted by her wild-child behaviour off screen. Her nightclub brawls, two broken engagements and seven-month marriage to Ashley Hamilton (now in rehab for heroin addiction) became infamous. Her exploits led to her leaving the program by “mutual agreement" with producers in 1993. These days Shannen has settled down and is rebuilding her acting career. With the support of film director and partner Rob Weiss, she's back making movies, starring in a new film called Mall Rats, due to be released here in autumn.

CLEO: Do you remember the night Beverly Hills 90210 premiered? DOHERTY: Yes, very well. I watched the sitcom A Different World that night. I was home alone. Just about everybody else in the cast was over at Darren Star's house, the guy who created the show. I stayed home by myself because I was so nervous. I didn't want to be around anybody. I mean, I find it so embarrassing to watch myself on TV in front of people. I remember watching myself on a tape of Little House: A New Beginning six years after we went off the air.

Why did you wait so long? I waited so long because I'm very, very critical of myself. I always find flaws in my performance. I've never been positive about a performance. I'm always thinking that I'm really bad on screen, even when I think the show as a whole is very good.

Have you and Jason Priestley, your brother in 90210, always been good friends?

We've been very close. From the day we shot the pilot, we spent hours and hours in each other's dressing rooms talking about our lives like real brothers and sisters would. On the show, as Brandon, he felt like he had the right to evaluate my life and criticise my friends. And that's what he ended up doing in real life, too, including giving his unsolicited opinions on my boyfriends. [She smiles, then blushes.]

What was your first professional acting job?

Just a few weeks after getting an agent, I did a guest spot on Father Murphy, which was a Michael Landon production. The funny thing is that I had been dreaming of working with Landon. When we finally met on the set, he loved me so much that he wrote me in to Little House.

Have you ever done any TV commercials?

A whole bunch. I did some for Pepsi and even McDonald's. But I hated doing commercials because the producers would always want me to wear braids. And when the other stage mothers saw me in braids, they immediately whipped out their hairbrushes and started working on their kids. I'm sure they hated me.

Is it true that you've never studied acting?

I took an improvisation class only four times and then quit. I did spend a very short time with Lee Strasberg's organisation. I couldn't get into the method acting bit. [Laughs.] They kept asking me what it felt like to be an oak tree. I told them: kind of lifeless. It just didn't work for me. Michael Landon once said to me that he thought I was a natural talent and that I shouldn't mess with it.

What turns you off about show business?

Let's say that when I have kids — and I do plan on having five some day — and they come to me when they're 10 years old and say, "I want to be an actress”, my response will be, “Ha, ha, ha…NO!” And I'd say no because this business – show business is filled with so many artificial people. I find it very difficult to make friends, long-lasting friends, in this business. My best friends, when I'm on the set, are members of the crew. To me, they're real people. They're never usually concerned about their looks. You won't find a member of the crew constantly looking in the mirror to see if their make-up's on right or if their hair looks good. And, if you don't have a strong set of values, you can get real messed up in this business.

How do you feel kids can get screwed up?

I've seen a lot of child actors become very resentful of their parents because they were pushed into the business by them. I also know people who made lots of money when they were kids, but who didn't have a penny to their names when they turned 18 and could take control of their finances. They're broke and they suddenly discover they've got nothing left because their parents stole and spent it all!

How have you managed to hang on to your money and avoid a similar situation? I hired attorneys and accountants. From the very beginning, my parents never got involved in my career that way and they never took a penny. I can honestly say that my parents support themselves and that I got all my money when I turned 18. Yes, maybe I spent it all on clothes and cars but I had a real good time doing it.

Are you serious about marriage and a family life one day? I'd like to be married by the time I'm 25. I know that doesn't give me much time but I don't want to wait until I'm 30 and go, "Well, let's see, I had this great career but where's the rest?" The most important thing to me is family. I'm sort of a country girl and want to move out of the city eventually. I'd like to have goats, pigs, dogs and horses everywhere. And I want five kids! I want two girls, one boy, then boy-girl twins. I already have the girls' names picked out; Alexandra Elizabeth, Langston Maria and Dylan.

Your first marriage to Ashley Hamilton didn't work out. He was the son of an actor. Is there something specific that you are looking for in a man now? I know that the typical answer is, “I want a man with a sense of humour and looks don't really count.” But I don't know about that. When you see somebody walking down the street, the first thing that attracts you to them is the way they look. It's purely physical. And I'm not saying they have to be gorgeous. It's annoying to be with another actor who's always staring at himself in the mirror. But not all actors are that way. Still, if I was married to an actor, it would be difficult to watch my husband in love scenes with other women all the time. I'm not sure if the insecurities would be worth it.

What's the most brutal aspect of the business?

Rejection! One minute you're the hottest thing in town and everybody's going, “This is it!” Big agents are calling and saying, “God, we want to represent you we know you're the up-and-coming young star.” And then the next week comes along and you're nothing. Nobody knows your name and agents don't return your phone calls.

Do you remember the most painful experience you've had in Hollywood? Vividly! When I was 12 years old I wanted the title role in Pollyanna more than I wanted anything in life. I was so positive that I would get the role. I knew it! And then I didn't get it. I started crying and crying and crying…..

How do you feel about being looked at in public?

I'm flattered. If people are watching me, I'd like to think that it's because they like my work. And that's really important to me.

So where do you go from here? Do you think you'll ever do another episode of 90210?

I don't know. [She smiles.] But I do have a lot of irons in the fire and I'm sure I'll surprise a lot of people very soon.

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Shannen Doherty by Giles Bensimon for the September 1995 issue of Elle magazine.

When Shannen Doherty was bad, she was bad enough to play lead bitch in the cult movie Heathers, get booted from Beverly Hills 90210, and have an ex-boyfriend claim in a national magazine that she was planning to sic him with sodomizing hit men.

Things change. Recently, a newly chastened Doherty got to live out a dream – spening a day as a fashion model (which she does here) – and work with one of the hottest young directors of Holywood.

Her latest movie, Mallrats, a Fast Times at Ridgemont High-style film from Clerks creator Kevin Smith; brings out a previously unexplored side of her personality. Doherty, twenty-four, describes her character as "a teenage shopaholic who emerges from every store wearing a different outfit." Hanging out in a mall for four of the six weeks of filming made her feel claustrophobic, she says, but playing a quick-change artist wasn't much of a stretch. "I always wanted to be a model. Whenever I have a photo shoot I practically run to the set. the scary part is that I'm only five foot four," Doherty says. "I met Clauda schiffer the other day and I looked like a midget next to her."

She nevertheless slips on some out-size attittude to pose in Gianni Versace's strict but seductive clothes for fall. For her favourite outfit, a pale blue, slightly boxy suit, she assumes whay she calls "a kind of Italian-stewardess-sexy look."

One role she isn't eager to replay is tabloid cover girl. "People take a character that you act for four years and assume it's you," she says. Brenda, her alter ego in 90210, was "young, immature, flighty, maybe bitchy. I proved that I could act by how strongly people reacted to her." The part made her famous and prompted nationwide circulation of the I Hate Brenda newsletter. But Doherty insists, "I'm nothing like that. Not," she points out, "that I can't strike it up for a photo shoot." – Jennifer Scruby.

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Shannen Doherty portrayed by Naomi Kaltman for the August 1995 issue of Sky magazine featuring her on the cover.

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August 1995 - Sky Magazine

Shiny Happy Person

She was the tantrum-hurling, prime-time bad chick. Not any more. Shannen Doherty has just finished filming what promises to be one of the most exciting films of the year, Clerks director Kevin Sith's second movie Mallrats.

Martin Pearson talks to the new soft-centred Shannen. Photos by Naomi Kaltman.

"If somebody came to me now," says Shannen Doherty, looking me straight in the eye, "and said 'Let's go out,' would I go to a club? No way! What's the point? This morning I forgot I was coming here and I was like, 'Mmm, this could be good. Sit here in my sweats, hang out in my house all day with my dogs and just kick back.""

Gone are the days when Shannen Doherty and her 90210 alter ego Brenda "The Bitch" Walsh seemed virtually indistinguishable and Doherty apparently used to spend much of her time being ejected from just about every nightclub in Los Angeles, usually in tears.

Over the past year, 24-year-old Doherty has been quietly working to turn her career around. And it may well have worked. Kevin Smith, the young New Jersey director who made the brilliant, micro-budget comedy Clerks, about a day in the life of two bored convenience store workers, has chosen Doherty as the star of his next, considerably bigger budget movie Mallrats. Filming – two months in a shopping mall in the depths of suburban Minnesota – has just finished, the movie is set for an autumn American release and no, there weren't any fights on the set.

"Working with Shannen on the film was a dream," says Smith, a scruffy, distinctly un-Hollywood, non-luvvie type still in his early 20s, and the kind of guy you can't imagine sitting around watching Beverly Hills 90210, unless he was heavily taking the piss out of it with his mates. "Her reputation may be unmatched," continues Smith, "but people grow and change. You can't stay an asshole forever." Doherty returns the favour. "I think Kevin is one of our great new talents," she says. "He's a brilliant, brilliant writer."

Mallrats takes place in a suburban shopping mall instead of Clerks' corner store, but, according to Doherty, despite the budget and the buzz around the project (Smith is one of the hottest of the post-Tarantino young directors) the same easy-going mentality rules. "Mallrats deals with relationships, kids who hang out at the mall and don't do anything." Doherty plays a young woman who is seriously frustrated with her under-achieving boyfriend. Though you can't see Doherty, a self-confessed "Southern Baptist Republican", approving of the lifestyle in Mallrats, as in American she must at least approve of the mall bit.

"I hate malls!" she laughs. "What could be worse? You're trapped in a closed building and getting out is so much effort. I don't understand why people like hanging out there, except that it must be something to do with safety."

The mall mentality may be beyond her understanding, but Doherty strongly identifies with her character's emotions. In the film, what she wants is a mature relationship, instead of having to sneak past her boyfriend's parents - he's the kind of guy who still lives at home - every time she wants to see him. "She just wants what every woman wants." Doherty says. "She's a little further along than him. She wants a mature, stable relationship, where he's attentive. The whole deal - someone who tells you that he cares about you and loves you every single day, tells you that you're beautiful and pulls the chair out for you. He's not even meeting her halfway on that.

"It's like when you love someone and sort of excuse them for their faults," she continues. "That's what I've found in my life. Anyone I've loved before had so many faults that you could fight over them every single day-and you usually do- but then at some point you have to say, 'OK, so this is what they're actually like, and you have to excuse them for that."

Doherty has evidently learned a great deal from her ill-fated, tabloid- trumpeted five-month marriage to Ashley Hamilton, son of wrinkly old supertanned smoothie George Hamilton. Ashley turned out to have a serious drug habit, something Doherty says she found out about too late.

"I married him not knowing," she says, "and when you find out some- thing like that it's a different emotion. 'You lied to me: you're not the per- son I thought you were. I still think he's very sweet and kind-hearted in- side. He's just going through a lot of problems right now, and unfortunate- ly I stuck it out for as long as I could before I had to worry about myself."

Shannen Doherty is surprisingly soft-spoken, loud only when animated, smokes endless Marlboros, and for our interview turns up wearing a Gap-ad-simple outfit of blue jeans and white T-shirt with next-to-no make-up. At the interview-lunchtime on a baking hot afternoon in an LA garden-she exudes a quiet but serious selfconfidence.

We chat about Marlon Brando's book and the tragedy of his daughter's recent suicide. Shannen tells me she has recently moved into a three-storey Spanish-style house in a secluded valley of the Hollywood hills (she's a compulsive house-mover: "I have a problem with staying in one place too long"). She lives there alone, with her two dogs, a German Shepherd called Alfic and an 18-month-old Rottweiler pup called Myra, which apparently likes nothing more than shagging people's thighs. Doherty is already thinking ahead to the day when Myra grows up. "Can you imagine having this hundred-pound Rott attached to your leg?"

In person Doherty looks barely older than the teenager who began her TV career in Little House on the Prairie (Shannen-junkies can currently catch the very young Ms Doherty in C4's Sunday repeats). "Going from child star to adult was very easy," she says of her early days. "I grew up on TV – it was like, 'OK, let's put her in this series and this series and this series. The most difficult transition is going from TV to film, though people always forget I was in Heathers (the gloriously bitchy 1989 black come- dy co-starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater). That's hard."

Doherty is no trendy 90s slacker movie star – she was a child star who considers herself primarily a working actress. If anything has helped Doherty come back from the brink of permanent tabloid notoriety, it's the tough Protestant work ethic that was, she says, impressed on her by her parents.

"They made me the person I am today, instilling my beliefs inside of me," she says sternly. Doherty was born in the God-fearing South and reared as a conservative, a Baptist and "a total goofball". The family moved to LA when she was seven. Her mother runs a beauty salon; her father's a New York-born banker, "very serious and very intense, but light-hearted as well. I'm very like him." She insists she was always a quiet child, either working or studying, not even rebelling against her family as a teenager. She never listened to music like other kids, and never hung out at the mall or got into trouble with boys, booze or drugs. In other words, she was anything but a normal American teenager.

Instead of a Beverly Hills High-alike, Doherty went to the Lycée Français, an old-fashioned, European-style school which emphasised hard work and discipline over convertible Corvettes and breast enlargements. "From that school I could have gone to pretty much any Ivy League college," she says. But that never made sense to the ambitious young Doherty. "What was I going to do? Go study for four years to be a lawyer and still make a fraction of what I'm making now."

All this sounds weird coming from the woman who has spent the last few years as the subject of ugly stories of tantrums on set, of guns pulled and boyfriends bashed.

"Reflecting on it now, I wonder where all that press came from," she ponders. "I don't know how much 90210 thrived on it. If you think about it, that press did quite a bit for the show… who knows? It benefits everyone but the actor. Everybody else makes out fine; everybody else gets out without a wound and meanwhile I come out crippled. I certainly went through that – oh my God!"

So is she saying that all those stories were made up by the press? Well, she had her bad days, she admits. Some of those scandalous headlines were true. "In all fairness, to myself and to people who gave it to me. I would say…" Doherty agonises for a few moments… "I'd say it was true maybe… 50/50? But not really… maybe 60/40, or even 70/30." Whatever the precise percentage, it's clear she had a major attitude problem. "I can certainly recall times when I was up at my house, going 'Ohhhhhhh! What am I doing?" she admits, clutching her head in her hands and laughing. "I was literally hitting myself over the head. But that was then. Now I look back it's something that, in a very, very odd way, it's good I went through." (Not so good for everyone else, maybe, but hey, let's be forgiving here.) "Most people go through that when they're a little older. I went through it very early and that's great, because now I'm in this very stable place."

One thing she says she could never come to terms with was her reputation as a hardcore Hollywood-brat club-fiend. given "the 5am starts, 16-hour days" she was working at the time on Beverly Hills 90210. "I'd go out on the weekends so what?" she splutters indignantly. "The people who gave me that reputation were the club owners who wanted me to go there all the time. It was like I'd been there once, then all of a sudden I'm a regular." Nowadays clubbing is the very last thing she thinks about. "I'm a workaholic by nature," she explains, "so for me to have downtime is really unusual. When I can, I do nothing. I'm a homebody. It takes a real effort for me to leave my house."

Part of the "very stable place" she refers to is provided by her current partner, Amongst Friends director Rob Weiss. Doherty appears to be taking the new relationship a lot slower than her last disastrous whirlwind romance, and given that her personal life has often been front page news, is understandably reluctant to talk too much about it. For example, she's recently been said to be up for a part in Weiss's latest project, a violent thriller tentatively titled Milk Bar. True?

"I read that article too," she shoots back, smiling. "I don't know if it's true. He is doing a film, but whether I'm going to be in it or not is yet to be decided. It'll probably clash with another film that I'm committed to, so in that sense it probably won't happen."

On the topic of what it would be like working with Weiss she is diplomatic: "It would take a lot of thinking about, because to have a personal and professional relationship is really hard. I think he's a brilliant director, and he's only going to get better the older he gets and the more he learns and opens himself up. Eventually I'd like to work with him, even if we're not together any more. Actually," she wriggles in her chair, then laughs, "it'd probably be easier to work with him if we weren't together.

"I've never let my personal life interfere with my work." she continues, surely a little ingenuously, as if in explanation. "The most important thing to me right now is my work. It's something I'm extremely passionate about, and I would never do anything to jeopardise it. I always show up on time, I always know my lines and I always give 100 per cent to my job. I pride myself on being professional."

Doherty is used to being a Hollywood insider, after all she's been in the business since she was a kid. But she still enjoys a good gossip. Like the time she met Jack Nicholson on a movie set and ended up having a cosy chat in his trailer. When Nicholson made his inevitable pass Doherty was so nervous she turned and fled. "I just said, 'Uh, I've got to find my friend and ran." she laughs. "But when I got to the door I was so flustered I couldn't get it open. So he came up behind me and kind of brushed against me as he opened the door. I almost fell out. It was a very undignified exit… but he's so charming, he's a brilliant man."

Like most actresses, though, she's keen to point out the downsides of fame: "Sometimes you do realise that you're different. But for the most part it's just something I'm used to. Like recently, one of my friends was having a birthday party at a nightclub and I had to explain to her that I couldn't go. How could I go in without being noticed and then harassed by the paparazzi outside? And then I'd see myself on TV with them attaching some stupid remark to it." Doherty says that she deliberately chooses her friends from wider circles than Hollywood's incestuous club circuit. Her fellow actors, it seems, are not her favourite kind of friend. "Why would I want to hang out with actors? That would be like surrounding myself with a bunch of Shannens," she squeals. "With people that are identical to me? What am I going to learn from them? Nothing. I do have a couple of friends who are, but… I mean, I wouldn't go out with a male actor…"

Doherty is, she says. "very picky, very protective" when it comes to forming close friendships. Possibly as a result of being confined to the restrictions of a formula teen-TV show for such a long time, she's now determined to expand her horizons. She intends to work on an "amazing independent New York street movie" soon and has written her own script, which she plans to make herself.

"It's twisted," she says, smiling, "It's about a woman who is extremely strong and a man who does her wrong. She goes insane. I wrote it because I think that there are so many male characters in the movies who go completely psychotic and hurt women. But you never see a woman doing that. I wanted to make a movie where men would be sitting in the theatre going 'Oh my God!" And women were like "Yeah!' I'd just like women to live out their fantasy, maybe in one of my films."

If the tabloids are to be believed, Doherty is alleged to have once pulled a gun on a former boyfriend. So what exactly do her revenge fantasies involve? "Well… I've never really wanted to kill a man before," she deliberates, choosing her words carefully, "but I would imagine that… Er, well, I've had some friends who have…"

Doherty says she's now almost certain that LA is not the place she wants to live. In a week or two she's going to New York for a film, but plans to go house-hunting too. She half expects to end up staying there for good. She seems more than ready to make the final move. A new home, a new city, a new career. But that doesn't mean abandoning the determined – even headstrong – Shannen Doherty of old.

"I'm never going to be the type of person who walks away from those things I believe," she says evenly. "I would always take my stand. But now I know there's a right way of doing it and a wrong way. I think recently I've really learned," she clears her throat, lights the last Marlboro and grins checkily, "…the art of diplomacy."

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July 1995 - "Premiere"

God Bless the Mall of America

Shannen Doherty! Pickle-On-A-Stick! Hooters!

"Clerks" director Kevin Smith takes his "Mallrats" star to the world's biggest shopping center. Photographed by Sylvia Plachy.

So very very: Doherty: "Kevin made me audition. Twice!"

Smith: "I didn't know what to do. You're Shannen Doherty, for God's sake."

I don't want a pickle: Doherty, above: "Will people think we really eat pickle-on-a-stick?"

Shannen with Smith and the waitresses at Hooters: "I was going to read for Showgirls but Joe Eszterhas said you couldn't even try unless you were ready to bare all."

The long arm of the mall: Doherty poses with mall security. "I wish people would just look at my work before the TV show. I'd like to put it behind me, sort of delete it from the résumé."

Drowned rats: Getting soaked on the Camp Snoopy flume ride.

I just wanna ride on my motorsickle: Smith challenges Doherty to a motorcycle game in the arcade.

At the Rainforest Cafe, Doherty tells how her dad killed her parrott, Buddy: "He accidentally slam-dunked him against the bottom of the cage."

The two collapse on the escalator. Smith: "You can't be in Minneapolis and not come to the Mall of America."

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Beautiful and glamurous Shannen portrayed by Wayne Maser for "Allure" magazine, unknown 1995 issue.

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1995 - Allure magazine (unknown issue).

A New Zip Code

It's hard to think of anyone more in need of an image overhaul than Shannen Doherty. That's why we gave her one.

By Christian Wright. Photography by Waune Maser.

Shannen Doherty has an image problem.

From the rubber checks to the bar brawls to the disposable marriage, her behavior played right into several inches of gossip columns. while fans of Beverly Hills, 90210, tuned in for an hour of sunny absurdity, Doherty wasn't able to maintain that ironic distance. She swallowed her character – Brenda the Bitch – whole. It's no wonder she picked up the silly, spolied starlet reputation. Still, "I don't understand it at all," Doherty says. "Recently different people have come into my life and said, 'You're this really nice person with a really bad image. Let's put out who you really are.'" And who might that be? "I'm just a nice, Southern Baptist, Republican girl".

Well, then, in the name of Newt Gingrich, a makeover! Gone is the long raven hair, it's been chipped into a real bowl cut from the 1950s (when the nation last was good and true). The eyerows are no longer so pencil-thin and arched liked skid marks left by a crazed Joan Crawford tailspin. They're a bit fuller at present. Though, she says, "this is as thick as they're ever going to get". As a younger girl (she's now only 23), Doherty suffered from bushy monobrow. Today, tweezzers are her favourite thing. The put-upon smirk: so familar back in the old Zip code, has been replaced by a more glamorous grimace. Smudged eyeliner, luch black eyelashes,and a rich, sligthly creamy lipstick lend an air of Holywood's golden age.

In fact, in this light, Doherty – with pronounced collarbone, deep cleavage, and detached stare – recalls Ava Gardner in the heady late 40s or Elizabeth Taylor when she was young, and tidy-white.

Doherty likes dressing up in guises. Of course, she should,it's her job. "That's part of acting," she says. "It gives you the opportunity to be ten other people without being diagnosed with schizophrenia." (Some might reserve judgment.) in everyday life, though, Doherty is considerably less stylized. At homr in Los Angeles, where she lives with her boyfriend, director Rob Weiss (so much for Newt's "normal" American values) she tends to wear jeans, T-Shirts, and no makeup. "I hate makeup in general," she says. "After you get done doing a series for four years you tend to go makeup-free." When she's in New York, it's a different story. "Calvin Klein, Donna Karan,and Chanel; mascara,eyeliner and lipstick. A chic-er side of me comes out. I don't know why!"

Meanwhile, the plump, girlish version of Doherty is preserved, a latter-day Marcia Brady on an endless syndication loop. How her looks have changed. "Oh, my God," she says. "So much. I never really realized that I used to be chubby. I never dieted or anything. As I grew up, the baby fat just started falling off me."

Maybe the sordid past will be just as easy to shed.

NOTE: The page article, as you can see, is very small. english is not my first language either. So maybe there's typos and mistakes and some things don't make sense. If so, please let me know and I will correct it. hopefully one day I can get a copy myself and can scan it (and know the actual issue/date!)

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February 25, 1995 - Hello Magazine. Photos by Jadran Lazic.

Shannen Doherty in her Hollywood Home.

Beverly Hills 90210's bad girl turns over a new leaf

Since she left school in Tennessee to begin her acting career in 1981 at the tender age of ten, Shannen Doherty achieved early fame through Little House On The Prairie and went on to superstardom with her role as Brenda Walsh in Beverly Hills 90210, which she played for four years before leaving in unhappy circumstances. Along with her fame came a reputation as a partygoing wild young thing.

But, despite rumours about her tempestuous nature and off-screen temper tantrums, American television viewers have flooded producer Aaron Spelling with letters demanding her return to the series.

Shannen will be returning to Beverly hills 90210 to make a guest appearance, but in the meantime she has traded her tight jeans for feminine bustiers and demure new look for her role as Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, in a new television film about the faous writer's life.

Another part of her past that Shannen is ore than happy to leave behind is her involvement in several well-published arguments with boyfriends.

Shannen has been engaged twice – first to Christoper Foufas and then to Dean Factor, heir to the Max Factor Fortune.

then, in September 1993, after a very swift courtship, she married Ashley Hamilton, son of actor George Hamilton. Their marriage broke down just five months later, but Shannen can now recognise that she learned something positive from that most difficult episode.

Meeting her current boyfriend, 27-year-old director and producer, Rob weiss,seems to have marked a major change in her life. Heis rumoured to be the director of a forthcoming Oliver Stone production based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel, American Psycho.

After dating Rob for a year, Shannen now leads a much calmet lifestyle and spends much more time in her beautiful home in the Hollywood hills. it was there that the petite, raven-haired actress spoke to us about her new-found tranquility and her hopes for the future.

You started acting when you were only ten, do you ever regret that you started so early in your life?

"Yes, because I missed going to regular school and having classmates. I used to learn on the set with a tutor, so I was constantly in the company of adults. I didn't have a normal childhood and I am sorry about that."

Michael Landon produced the series Father Murphy in which you appeared, then he hored you to play Jenny Wilder in The Little House on the Prairie. Was he a very important person in your life?

"He was my mentor, my idel. Michael was like a second father to me. He was the most gentle man I have ever met. I can sincerely say that he was my teacher and my guide."

Did you enjoy working on your recent portrayal of Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone With the Wind?

"I was so happy to get the part, as she had always fascinated me. And i must admit it was great fun to dress up in the very feminine costumes of that period. I read everything I could find about Margaret Mitchell. To learn her southern accent I went to live in North Carolina for a month before we started shooting so I could be among people who spoke that way. I also worked with a dialect coach."

What are you working on now?

"My boyfriend is going to direct a movie and I'm going to play in it. But I won't say any more becuase the project is in its early stages."

Do you prefer working in film rather than television?

"Yes, that's my plan. I want to get my own production company rolling and start developing and producing my own things. I want to continue to be an actress, but only to play the roles that excite me."

Can you tell us a little more about your boyfriend, Rob Weiss?

"He makes me happy. He has a lots of ambitions, a lot of drive,and he has a lot to teach me. Rob learns a lot from me, too. It's a very supportive relationship and it gives me a stable and happy environment."

Was meeting Rob a turning point in your life?

"Without any doubt. But to be honest with you. I've grown up a lotin the past year. I am stringer and I have got out of two bad situations."

Would you like to elaborate on those bad times?

"I'm talking about Beverly Hills 90210 where I was unhappy in my last two years with the show. Then there was my marriage to Ashley Hamilton in which I was even more unhappy."

Do you feel that your marriage was a mistake?

"Yes, it was. I know that each experience teaches you something and I have learned a lot from that one, but living through it was very difficult. I knew on my wedding day that it was a mistake, and I went through that whole day knowing in my head that I really shouldn't have gone ahead with it."

Then why did you marry Ashley?

"Because all of my friends around me kept pushing ,e to get married. 'Go ahead, do it! Do it!' they would say. I couldn't back down. So I did it. a month after our marriage I found out that Ashley had many problems that I had not been aware of. I loved him because I thought he had a good heart. But there are so many kinds of love. Now that I am really 'in love' with Rob, I know the difference."

You seem to have a very good relationship with Rob?

"Exactly. Since we are also close friends, we understand and learn from each other."

Do you forsee a wedding in the near future?

"Oh, it's a good way off yet. Right now I want to concentrate on my career."

Are you a little scared to try marriage again?

"A little. I have only known Rob for a year. We need more time to learn more about each other. But I am not against marrying again. And the next time I get married I would like it to last forever. So I'm not going to ruch things. I'm being smart and taking one day at a time."

Can you talk about the problems that you had on Beverly Hills 90210?

"The first two years were great. We were a bunch of young actors who became good friends, we were happy. My character, Brenda Walsh, was fascinating.

"Then Brenda changed and I did not like the character I was protraying any more because the writers and producers made her less interesting to me. She seemed to have far less range, the character wasn't challenging me as an actress. So I asked to quit. But I was under contract and they didn't let me leave for another two years."

How did you manage to work so long in a situation you didn't like?

"To a certain extent those two years felt as if I were serving a prison sentence! But some of the people were really nice and I leanred a lot from the experience."

In what ways have you changed since you left the series last spring?

"I'm more patient, more mature. Don't forget that at the beginning of the series I became suddenly famous. I didn't understand how to deal with fame. It was a huge responsability that I was uable to cope with at the time.

"I was probably too young and too naive, to handle the unhappy situations. Today I am stronger. I have a certain inner peace that allows me to deal with anything."

With your experiencem if you had children would you want them to go into acting?

"No. I'll never have my child in this business."

We've so often heard you described as a tempestuous wild-child. Could you describe the real Shannen?

"I am quite a nice person. I was lucky to have great parents who brought me up well. When I read nasty things about myself, even though they were 90 per cent untrue, they hurt terribly. It was an insult to my parents who do not deserve to hear that their daughter was so naughty. Especially as I wasn't."

How do you cope with the stories?

"You just have to deal with it the best you can. You start by getting angry and wanting to change things. But it doesn't work that way. so you have to learn to live with all the stories. I was never ableto stop them anyway.

"Now I am strong, very ambitious and I think I also have a good heart. My good friends can attest to that. I like to hel`p people and I am a good loyal friend.

What do you like to do when you're not working?

"I love cooking. And I love shopping, that's my downfall! But I am also very wise and I give myself just so much money to spend each week."

What kind of clothes do you like to wear?

"At home I wear mostly jeans and T-shirts, things that are comfortable. But when I go out at night I like to wear flowing long dresses. I like to look very feminine."

You used to be seen at all the hot nightclubs but more recently you've left that scene alone. What happened?

"Now I stay here in the evenings with my boyfriend. We cook, we eat, we read, we listen to music. We are happy at home alone. We are in love and it's pretty frightening, we are a bit like an old married couple! I know exactly what he's going to say and he knows exactly how I'm going to react to something. We can predict almost everything about one aother, which is actually great. It's very comfprtable."

If you could change anything about yourself now what would it be?

"I want to stop smoking. I always promised to myself that I would. I also want to take better care of myself. I adore cheeseburgers and French fries, they're my daily lunch and I know it's bad.

"Apart from that I don't think I would change anything. I like myself. My parents and my brother Sean like me too. I'm happy. I can0t ask for anything more."

Interview: Christopher Monroe.

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Shannen Doherty portrayed by Jadran Lazic for the January 1995 issue of "Woman's Day".

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Shannen Doherty portrayed by Jadran Lazic for the January 1995 issue of "Woman's Day".

We can see him with Shannen in the last photo. This very successful photo session appeared in many magazines around the world, including Germany (Bravo February 1995), Greece (Katerina June 1995) and France (we can see Shannen posing with French journalist Isabelle Caron).

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Shannen Doherty by Jadran Lazic for the January 1995 issue of "Woman's Day" magazine.

Supermodel Shannen

She's ditched the grunge for a glamorous new career

By Di Blackwell.

Gone forever is the sullen, sulky Shannen Doherty with the long stringy hair, the ripped jeans and the appalling reputation. Almost overnight, the former 90210 star with the attitude from hell shook off her wild child image and stopped eating men for breakfast. Now it's Shannen Doherty supermodel, and watch out anyone who tries to rain on this newly sophisticated and confident young celebrity's parade.

With her porcelain skin and cheekbones to die for, shannen Doherty is a photographer's dream and the camera adores her every angle. she's too petite for catwalk modelling but the prestigious Elite Models agency in New York has long pursued the TV beauty and finally she has signed with them. This means Shannen is available for big-time fasion/beauty accounts and is sure to go the route taken by fellow actors Isabella Rossellini and Melanie Griffith, who have made fortunes with major cosmetic companies. Launching hew new career, shannen posed for our exclusive pictures on these pages. Her gleaming black hair is now styled in a sleek bob, and her look is that of a glamorous, sensuous woman.

The irrepressible Ms Doherty is also fresh from rave reviews for her portrayal of author Margaret Mitchell in A burning Passion. Television mogul Aaron Spelling, who hated being forced to sack her from 90210, must be very proud of the wild child he knew would finally blossom.

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Shannen Doherty as an Oscar nominée making a cameo appearance in the 1994 comedy film "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult", premiered on 18 March 1994. Photo by Ron Phillips.

Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) comes out of retirement to help Police Squad infiltrate a gang of terrorists planning to detonate a bomb at the Academy Awards.

Ebay auction listing.

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Married American actors Shannen Doherty (1971 - 2024) and Ashley Hamilton attend a screening of 'Beethoven's 2nd' at the Cineplex Odeon Cinema, Century City, California, December 11, 1993.

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American actor Shannen Doherty (1971 - 2024) attends the third annual Billboard Music Awards at the Universal Amphitheater, Universal City, California, December 9, 1992.

(Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)

[shannendoherty-fans]

Hi where did you get the pics of Shannon with Tori spelling with Nick savalas

Hi!

These come from ebay. I don't remember now if I just bought the clippings (it was long ago) or if it was the occasion that an ebay seller had this CD-room with thousands of Shannen's pics and I bought that (I had already most of them but not these rare ones).

Usually they come from the worst tabloids like Star or National Enquirer but they have the rarest photos too, that's why I only shared the photos and not the article.

Hopefully this helps!