Daveigh Chase, the actress who gave voice to the beloved title character in Disney's animated Lilo & Stitch and terrified a generation of moviegoers as Samara Morgan in The Ring, has died. She was 35.
Chase's boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, told TMZ that she had been suffering from meningitis, which led to a blood infection and eventually to sepsis. TheWrap reported the actress's death but noted that additional details were not immediately available. No official cause of death has been released, and neither the exact date nor the location of her passing has been confirmed publicly.
TMZ separately reported that Chase had been hospitalized in Los Angeles in early June due to malnutrition. Hernandez has since started a GoFundMe page, though the specific details of that campaign were not included in initial reporting.
Chase appeared in smaller television parts before landing the roles that would define her career. Her breakout came in 2002, when she voiced Lilo Pelekai, the spirited Hawaiian girl who adopts an alien, in Disney's Lilo & Stitch. She would go on to voice Lilo in several additional Disney projects.
A year earlier, in 2001, Chase had voiced Chihiro in the English-language version of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. That performance earned her an Annie Award for voice acting, a remarkable achievement for a child actress working alongside some of the most accomplished talent in animation.
The same year Lilo & Stitch charmed family audiences, Chase took on a starkly different role. She played Samara Morgan, the eerie child at the center of the American horror film The Ring. Her performance helped turn the movie into what has been described as a cultural phenomenon. Few child actors have managed to anchor both a Disney animated classic and a major horror franchise in the same year.
Hollywood has seen several recent losses in the entertainment world, but Chase's death at such a young age carries a particular weight given how early she began her career and how wide her range was.
Chase's filmography extended well beyond her two most famous roles. She played Samantha Darko in the cult film Donnie Darko and later returned as the character in the sequel, S. Darko.
Between 2006 and 2011, she appeared on the HBO drama Big Love as Rhonda Volmer, a manipulative teenager raised within a polygamist community. The role gave Chase a sustained presence on prestige television during a period when HBO was producing some of the most talked-about shows on the air. A photo from the Big Love Season 5 premiere at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles on January 12, 2011, captured Chase at a moment when her career still seemed full of possibility.
She also appeared in independent thrillers, including Jack Goes Home. But in later years, Chase stepped away from acting. The reasons for her departure from the screen have not been detailed publicly.
The entertainment industry has a long and uncomfortable history with child stars who struggle in adulthood, and Chase's trajectory, early fame, a quieter period, hospitalization, and now death at 35, fits a pattern that ought to trouble anyone paying attention. The details of her final years remain largely private, and they deserve to be treated with care rather than speculation.
Much about Chase's death is still unknown. The exact date and time have not been disclosed. The location has not been confirmed. And while Hernandez attributed her decline to meningitis, sepsis, and a blood infection, no official medical or coroner's statement has been reported.
The entertainment world has its own way of memorializing its own, but the facts here are still thin. The public knows that a young woman who brought joy to millions of children, and nightmares to millions of adults, is gone far too soon.
In an era when the children of famous families navigate Hollywood's pressures with varying degrees of protection, Chase had no famous parents to shield her. She entered the industry young, worked steadily, and then disappeared from public view.
Other recent deaths of well-known figures have reminded Americans how quickly a life can end and how little the public sometimes knows about the people it once watched on screen.
Daveigh Chase was 35. She deserved more time, and the people who loved her work deserved more answers. For now, neither is available.
