This Time, She's a Good Witch

By BRUCE HANDY

When first meeting her, you quickly learn two things about Shannen Doherty. One, her face is more symmetrical in person than it is onscreen. And two, if you visit the set of her new WB series Charmed and happen to sit in the canvas director-style chair with her name stenciled on the back, she won't punch you in the face or break a beer bottle over your head when she finds you there. In truth, she's perfectly gracious and nonvolatile. Is there anything more you really wanted to know on the subject?

Someday, when Charmed is forgotten, the former star of Beverly Hills, 90210 will still be a touchstone of early '90s nostalgia, the era's iconic teenage girl in her role as pouty, headstrong Brenda Walsh. The naturalness of Doherty's bratty but earnest characterization helped make the show a hit by the end of its first season (1990-91). There was sudden fame and magazine covers, but it is a time that Doherty remembers less than fondly. Now 27, she wants the world to know that she is not the same person she was when she was regularly written up in the tabloids for fighting in nightclubs, threatening to shoot a fiance, trashing rental properties, throwing tantrums on the 90210 set, marrying Ashley Hamilton, dating Judd Nelson.

She explains it all thusly: "I was 21 years old, trying to grow up and figure out who I was, and I didn't consciously think, 'Maybe I should be real low-key and stay in my house.' Instead I was like, 'I'm 21 and I can go out and have a great time and sort of experience the whole college life,' if you will. I made myself an easy target. But that was a really long time ago." That, of course, depends on your definition of "really long." (Last year she agreed to undergo anger-management counseling after breaking a beer bottle over a car.) But surely no one, no matter how famous or petulant, should have to have his or her collegiate doings, or the equivalent, covered regularly in the National Enquirer.

Doherty left 90210 in 1994, reportedly not on the best of terms with her colleagues, including executive producer Aaron Spelling, who on Charmed is once again her boss. Both Doherty and Spelling claim that any animosity on either side was greatly exaggerated. Spelling approached her earlier this year with the idea of returning to 90210, which in its ninth season is already about two cycles past its prime. Doherty declined, although she says she might make a special appearance for a season finale.

Spelling then offered her Charmed, a dramatic series about three young sisters who wear slip dresses, complain about dating and in the premiere episode, discover they are witches. The series, which has drawn surprisingly good ratings, manages to tap into TV's current fascination with the occult (The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) while recalling the classic three-babe structure of Spelling's '70s hit Charlie's Angels. Here, Doherty would seem to fit into the Jaclyn Smith mold--easily the most beautiful one but not necessarily the sexiest. (Alyssa Milano gets the Farrah Fawcett-Majors pinup part, while Holly Marie Combs is stuck with Kate Jackson.)

As for offscreen witchiness, Doherty reports that with 14-to-18-hour days on the set, she has little time for anything but sleep. "I just go home," she says--more proof that the '90s are all but over.

--By Bruce Handy