Daveigh Chase, voice of Lilo and star of The Ring, dies at 35

Daveigh Chase, the child actress who brought Lilo to life in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and scared everyone as the creepy girl in The Ring, passed away on Tuesday. She was 35.

Her boyfriend Roy Hernandez confirmed the news to TMZ. He said she died from complications of meningitis and serious blood infections. Hernandez had just set up a GoFundMe page for her this week as things got really bad. He told TMZ the blood infection caused septic issues that eventually led to her body shutting down. Doctors had warned him she might not have much time left.

She had been hospitalized in Los Angeles earlier this month, dealing with malnutrition.

Chase was born Daveigh Elizabeth Chase on July 24, 1990, in Las Vegas and grew up in Albany, Oregon. She started acting young, by age 7 she was already doing commercials and stage work. At just 8 she started landing TV roles in shows like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed, The Practice, and ER.

Daveigh Chase’s career really took off in the early 2000s. She played Samantha Darko in the cult classic Donnie Darko in 2001 alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. Around the same time she voiced Chihiro in the English version of Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away.

But it was 2002 when she became a household name for a lot of kids, voicing Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch. Daveigh Chase continued with the character in the sequels and the TV series that ran from 2003 to 2006.

That same year, Daveigh Chase also appeared in the horror hit The Ring, playing Samara Morgan — the long-haired girl in the white dress who became one of the most iconic scary characters of that era. Her performance got her an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.

Later she had a recurring role on HBO’s Big Love from 2006 to 2011 as Rhonda Volmer, the young sociopath. She came back to the Donnie Darko universe in 2009 for S. Darko. One of her last notable film roles was in the 2016 horror movie Jack Goes Home.

After that, Daveigh Chase mostly stepped away from acting.

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