Original 'Lilo & Stitch' Star Daveigh Chase Dead at 35

1 week ago 12

Published Jun 17, 2026, 1:46 PM EDT

A cinematic obsessive with the filmic palate of a starving raccoon, Rob London will watch pretty much anything once. With a mind like a steel trap, he's an endless fount of movie and TV trivia, borne from a misspent youth of watching monster movies on TV, perusing the sun-faded goods at the local video rental shop, and staining his fingers with ink from the Video Movie Guide. Areas of interest include science fiction, film noir, horror flicks, '70s disaster pictures, Bond movies, '90s action, giant robots, dinosaurs, super heroes, and the exuberantly schlocky output of Cannon Films. He also enjoys both Star Trek and Star Wars when they're good, and maybe even more when they're bad. As a Canadian, he also has a vested interest in Canadian movies and TV shows, especially the cheesier ones dubbed "Canuxploitation."

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Actor Daveigh Chase, the star of Lilo & Stitch, The Ring, and Donnie Darko, has died. Chase was able to shift effortlessly between innocence and menace; her career was short, but contained many indelible performances. Chase was 35; she died after a bout with meningitis.

Born in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 24, 1990, and raised in Albany, Oregon, Chase began her career as a child actor; at age 8, she won the lead voice role in Lilo & Stitch, playing a young Hawaiian girl who befriended a bizarre alien. The film, and Chase's charming performance, were widely acclaimed. Chase would later reprise the role in a number of animated spin-offs, sequels, and video games. She also voiced the lead character in the American dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Chase also began a live-action acting career, with small roles on series like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed, and ER.

Who Is Samara Morgan?

Chase broke out in live action in the 2000 cult classic Donnie Darko, playing the main character's younger sister, Samantha; she would go on to reprise the role in the direct-to-video sequel, S. Darko. The horror-tinged Donnie Darko set the stage for Chase's most iconic live-action role: the small but critical role of Samara Morgan, the ghost at the center of The Ring, Gore Verbinski's 2002 remake of the Japanese horror classic. Chase's eerie performance helped make the movie a hit, and won her an MTV Movie Award as Best Villain. She subsequently starred in the sitcom Oliver Beene, and guested on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Cold Case, and Without a Trace. She also became a regular on the HBO series Big Love, playing Rhonda Volmer, a sociopathic teenager who was betrothed to the elderly patriarch of a breakaway polygamist sect.

Chase took fewer acting roles following the end of Big Love, but starred in films like the Anna Gunn docudrama Little Red Wagon, the Nick Cassavetes drama Yellow, and the Rory Culkin horror film Jack Goes Home. Her final role was in the 2016 thriller American Romance, alongside John Savage and Diane Farr.

Chase took a hiatus from acting in 2016, and had struggles with addiction and the law; she had recently suffered from a number of health issues, and died after incurring a blood infection during a bout of meningitis. Her death was reported to TMZ by her boyfriend. Collider extends our sympathies to Chase's loved ones.