Birthday: April 12, 1971
Born in: Memphis, TN
Parents: Tom(mortgage broker)and Rosa(beauty-salon worker)
School: L.A. Baptist High School
Eye Color: Blue Gray
Siblings: brother Sean, USC law grad.

Shannen was acting by age ten. She made her tv debut in 1981 with the Michael Landon produced "Father Murphy." Landon then cast her as Laura Ingalls Wilder's adopted niece "Jenny Wilder," for the final season of "Little House on the Prairie" retitled : "Little House: A New Beginning."

Her real success arrived when producer Aaron Spelling's daughter, Tori, recommended her for his new series, "Beverly Hills 90210," where she played "Brenda Walch."

The actress rocketed to nororiety. The former teen diva with a colorful troubled past and inability to take responsibility for it - the very oppisite of her levelheaded, eldest good-witch character on "Charmed." She went through a series of often violent achohol fueled incidents and was sentenced to anger-managenent counseling by a judge in 1997. 

 

In Season 3, Shannen and her character was missed.