Shannen Doherty’s Brenda Walsh made it OK for good girls to have sex in high school

My girlfriend and I were sitting, scrolling, and drinking oat milk lattes Sunday morning when she gasped.

“Shannen Doherty died,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Brenda is gone?” I asked incredulously, not wanting to believe Doherty, who will forever be remembered as Brenda Walsh on the groundbreaking teen soap Beverly Hills, 90210, succumbed to breast cancer on July 13, after a nine-year fight. She was 53.

We spent the rest of the morning remembering Brenda and bad boy Dylan McKay’s (Luke Perry) spicy relationship in one of the country’s richest zip codes in the days before reality TV, cell phones, social media, or cancel culture. Possibility was everywhere and hormones and hope seeped from our pores. It didn’t matter Beverly Hills was a far cry from the cold, concrete, working-class East Coast cities where we grew up. Every high-waisted jean, cropped-top-wearing teen girl in the 1990s dreamed of having the steamy relationship Brenda and Dylan had. Brenda’s parents may not have approved of her relationship with Dylan, but they didn’t shame her. That was big!

My homegirls and I cheered when Brenda lost her virginity to Dylan on prom night and seethed when Brenda’s best friend, Kelly (Jennie Garth), went after her boyfriend behind her back. We also hit the ceiling when Kelly started carrying on with Brenda’s twin brother, Brandon (Jason Priestley). Donna (Tori Spelling) was the sweet friend we wanted in our clique. Steve (Ian Ziering) was a jerk. David (Brian Austin Green) grew on us.

We Gen Xers were good for watching soap operas with our parents and grandparents, from Dynasty to General Hospital. But before 90210, the only edgy entertainment that revolved around our lives were ABC Afterschool Specials, Judy Blume novels, and the Sweet Valley High series. Dylan and Brenda’s innocent, rocky, and lusty situationship made 90210 must-see TV.

The teenage sex drew us in and with Brenda and Brandon as the friend group’s moral pulse, the show’s teens dealt with serious issues like pregnancy scares, suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, rape, and racism. The juicy soap spawned a genre of drama centered around too-grown-for-their-own-good teenagers that continues to this day and includes Party of Five, One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, The O.C., The Fosters, Mean Girls, and HBO’s Euphoria.

Brenda and Dylan started all of that.

Then I remembered that in 2019, Perry died from a massive stroke. He was just 52.

“Dylan and Brenda are both gone now.” It was my turn to whisper.

Doherty’s reputation didn’t fare as well as her on-screen character. She reportedly stopped getting along with Spelling, daughter of 90210′s producer, Aaron Spelling, so Brenda was written off the series and sent to acting school in London. Doherty — who was in a tumultuous marriage with actor George Hamilton’s son Ashley — was labeled a Hollywood mean girl who partied, drank, and worst of all, was “difficult.”

90210 aired for 10 seasons and to fans’ dismay, Brenda never returned.

In 1998, Doherty landed the role of Prudence, the oldest of the three Charmed sisters on the CW’s witchy show, another Aaron Spelling series. She was fired after three seasons for supposedly not getting along with her costar Alyssa Milano. Her mean girl rep was cemented.

Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015; her frankness and transparency about her illness, surgeries, chemo, radiation, and lapses in insurance roused sympathy from fans and costars who previously hated on her. She was suddenly a force, not to be toyed with. The cancer went into remission in 2017. The next year, she guest-starred on the television series Heathers, a reprisal of the 1988 film Doherty starred in with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater.

In 2019, Doherty played herself in the scripted limited series BH90210. It was a bust. Fans wanted to see what happened to Brenda and crew, not Doherty and crew in a mock reality show. In her 2023 podcast, Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty, she addressed decades-old temper tantrums and other bad behavior. But at this point, nobody was mad at her. She was dying; she knew it, her friends and former costars knew it. They kindly helped her clear the air.

Doherty’s death on Saturday marked a weekend of celebrity passings that shaped our childhood as Gen Xers. Sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer died Friday at 96. In the ‘80s, Westheimer peppered the airwaves with advice I wouldn’t need for decades, answering questions I was too afraid to ask my mom before the age of Google. Richard Simmons, who made exercise a lifestyle, paving the way for Billy Blanks Jr., Jillian Michaels, and yoga pants, died on Saturday. He was 76.

Doherty, however, was one of us. She was defiant and unapologetic. Her real life was messy. (She would marry three times.) She was imperfect. She defined the Gen X experience of working it out as we go along. For this reason, we are loyal to Doherty and our Brenda memories. Just as her emergence on screen kick-started Gen X girls to start living, Doherty’s death is another reminder for my peers and me that life is fleeting, to stop taking things for granted, and to cherish the memories.