Remembering Brittany Murphy (1977-2009)

December 21, 2009

1995

She got her big break at age 15, playing Alicia Silverstone’s ditzy friend Tai in the comedy Clueless.

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1999

"I always envisioned her looking like a spindly blonde, but she looked like me," she has said of her suicidal character Daisy in 1999's Girl, Interrupted.

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1999

She hit the Girl, Interrupted premiere in Los Angeles.

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2001

"Everybody has difficult years, but a lot of times the difficult years end up being the greatest years of your whole entire life, if you survive them," the actress (here, at the Beverly Hills premiere of Moulin Rouge) has said.

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2002

After playing Eminem's romantic lead in 8 Mile, she had said her career "changed a lot. That was the difference between people knowing my first and last name as opposed to not."

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2003

In the comedy Just Married, Murphy and Ashton Kutcher played a young newlywed couple. Off-screen, they dated for seven months before splitting in 2003.

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2003

After her sudden Dec. 20 death, her ex Kutcher Twittered: "2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine."

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2003

After a five-month engagement to talent agent Jeff Kwatinetz (whom she dated after Kutcher), they called it quits in 2004.

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2004

"I've always seen myself as one of those 'show people,'" she has said. "My earliest memories are wanting and needing to entertain people, like a gypsy traveler who goes from place to place, city to city, performing for audiences and reaching people."

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2004

She loved to switch up her hair. "I like to be able to change it," she has said. "You know, if you can't change your surroundings, change your hair color!"

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2005

She played a tough, abused waitress in the gritty action-thriller Sin City.

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2006

"I don't really take myself very seriously," she has said. "I've never formally trained in acting, so I'm very instinctual and visceral with decisions. It hasn’t really been a plot or scheme in any way, shape or form."