Like everyone else, I was extremely surprised about hearing of the recent death of actress Brittany Murphy at age 32 on December 20th, 2009. She was one of those delightfully cute young actresses that came to your attention periodically, usually starring in romantic-comedies or dramas. But she seemed to have something, that spark you see in a person on film that makes you remember their name as well as their face.
She had a fairly long acting career, appearing on that old Candice Bergen series Murphy Brown way back in 1991 as one of the kid sisters of Frank (Joe Regalbuto), and the ancient, even in 1991, Rose Marie as Frank's mother. She went on to appear in several television programs, for 4 episodes of Blossom, a couple of Party of Five episodes, and so on. She finally hit it big, being cast as the character Tai, the friend of Alicia Silverstone's Cher in the smash hit movie Clueless in 1995.
After that, Murphy was on the fast track to stardom, appearing in film after film and occasionally doing guest appearances on television shows. She was the voice of Luanne Platter on the animated series King of the Hill from 1997 until this year, with well over 200 credits for the show.
By 2002, Murphy had made several notable movies, including 1999's Girl, Interrupted, with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, and had just completed acclaimed 8 Mile with rap star Eminem. She was nominated and won that year's Young Hollywood Award for the "Standout Performance by a Young Actor - Female" and her star was continuing to rise.
In 2003, she appeared with then current boyfriend Ashton Kutcher in Just Married, quickly followed by Little Black Book the next year. Then the cult and mainstream hit Sin City where she played Shellie, the waitress at the bar where all the divergent stories in the movie converged. Her most recent movie, just released weeks prior to her death, the thriller Across the Hall, about a young man named Terry (Mike Vogel) who finds out that his fiancee (Murphy) has checked into a hotel room with another man and he plans on killing her lover.
Murphy had also been seen this past October on television as the lead in MegaFault as Doctor Amy Lane. the Sci-Fi-action movie had to do with a fissure appearing in the earth's crust that could be seen from orbit. She also had 3 more films completed, Abandoned, with Dean Cain (of Lois and Clark fame), Mimi Rogers and Peter Bogdanovich. Two films are due out in 2010 with Brittany Murphy, Something Wicked and The Expendables, starring and directed by Sylvester Stallone, but Murphy's scenes were rumored to have been cut from the film.
She was scheduled to start filming Shrinking Charlotte in January 2010 and was rumored to begin production of Poor Things later in the year with Rosario Dawson (Bones) and Olympia Dukakis.
The cause of Murphy's death has yet to be determined, so the speculation is rampant. It was initially stated to have been caused by cardiac arrest.
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