Daveigh Chase, the actor who voiced Lilo in the animated “Lilo & Stitch” and played Samara in the American horror film “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.
TMZ also reported that Chase was hospitalized in Los Angeles in early June due to malnutrition. Additional details about her death were not immediately available.
Chase built one of the more memorable child-actor careers of the early 2000s. Her breakout came in 2002, when she voiced Lilo Pelekai in “Lilo & Stitch.” She would go on to voice Lilo in several Disney projects. Around the same time, she also voiced Chihiro in the English-language version of “Spirited Away” in 2001 and won an Annie Award for her voice work.
She also made her mark on the horror genre starring as Samara Morgan in “The Ring.” Her performance as the eerie child at the center of the horror film helped turn the movie into a cultural phenomenon and earned her MTV Movie Award recognition. Before those breakout roles, she had appeared in smaller television parts and played Samantha Darko in “Donnie Darko.”
As she grew older, she became known to TV audiences for playing Rhonda Volmer on the HBO drama “Big Love,” a manipulative teenager raised within a polygamist community, appearing on the series between 2006 and 2011. She later returned as Samantha in “S. Darko” and appeared in independent thrillers including “Jack Goes Home.” Though she stepped away from acting in later years, Chase remained closely associated with the performances that defined a generation of family and horror films.
Her boyfriend, Hernandez has started a GoFundMe.
