The Little House on the Prairie and Beverly Hills 90210 star died Saturday at age 53.
Shannen Doherty became a household name and an international celebrity in the 1990s, thanks to her full-tilt performance as the mercurial Brenda Walsh in the teen-skewing prime-time soap opera Beverly Hills 90210, then continued to attract millions of viewers and maintain her celebrity while playing one of three supernaturally empowered sisters during the first three seasons (1998-2001) of Charmed. But for those of a certain age, she may always be remembered best for her winning performance as young Jenny Wilder in the final season of series creator and star Michael Landon’s enduringly popular Little House on the Prairie.
Doherty — who passed away Saturday at age 53 after a lengthy battle with cancer — was only 11 years old when Landon, impressed by her guest-starring performance in episodes of his Father Murphy series, cast her as Jenny. The character was more or less designed to a bring young girl’s perspective back to the show after long-time series regulars Laura Ingalls (Melissa Gilbert) and Nellie Oleson (Alison Arngrim) were grown and married.
Jenny was introduced to the show after the death of her father. She was adopted by Laura and her husband Almanzo Wilder (Dean Butler), and quickly was accepted by audiences as “a new Laura.” Doherty reprised the character in three TV-movie spinoffs: Little House: Look Back to Yesterday (1983), Little House: The Last Farewell and Little House: Bless All the Dear Children (both 1984).
In her memoir Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, Alison Arngrim observed: “Jenny is played by a pre-90210 Shannen Doherty, who tries her damndest to do an impersonation of Melissa Gilbert in the early years. She is part of the ‘cloning process’ that took place in the last years of the show, where new little girls with braids fought new little girls with ringlets.”

Gilbert noted in her book Prairie Tale that Doherty “was an adorable little girl and very sweet. In her pigtails and dress, she would literally walk in my footsteps, following me closer than my shadow. She wanted to know what makeup I wore, what jewelry I liked, and did I prefer my Jordache jeans or my Calvin’s? She looked up to me even though I was, in many ways, still a kid myself.”
In a recent Remind Magazine article, Doherty fondly remembered Michael Landon — who succumbed to cancer in 1991 — and her time with Little House on the Prairie. “That show shaped me in so many ways and it still is the best experience of my entire career,” she said. “I adored [Landon]. He was a mentor. He taught me so much.
“It’s kind of amazing because, when I think about the long span of my career, but also how rough some jobs were — and unenjoyable to be a part of, a little bit toxic — it was really the experience on Little House that spurred that passion on for being an actor, and it was having a mentor like Michael Landon. I don’t care what anybody else’s experience was like, I know the truth about that man, and he was just unbelievable.”
Landon, she said, was “so, so, so talented, so kind, so considerate, and it really helped shape me. And he was incredibly caring for my entire family.”
Doherty’s other credits include her two-season run as the granddaughter of Wilford Brimley in Our House (1986-88), and the movies Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), Heathers (1988), and Mallrats (1995).