Former child star Daveigh Chase dies at 35 after illness

Daveigh Chase, a former child actress best known for voicing Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch and portraying Samara Morgan in the horror film The Ring, died on Tuesday at age 35. Her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, told TMZ that she had been hospitalized for meningitis and a bloodstream infection that progressed to septic shock, and that she had also been treated for malnutrition earlier in June.

John Ryan Jr., a representative who had worked with Chase for more than a decade, said the loss was significant for those who knew her. "Daveigh was one of my best friends for the last 17 years and we were in the middle of a documentary about her when she passed," he told Yahoo.

Chase began her career with a 1998 appearance on Sabrina the Teenage Witch and later appeared in guest roles on series such as CSI, Cold Case and Without a Trace. She voiced the lead character in the preschool series Betsy's Kindergarten Adventures in 2008 and played Rhonda in the television drama Big Love from 2006 to 2011.

Her film work included a role as Samantha in Donnie Darko (2001) and its sequel S. Darko (2009), as well as the voice of Chihiro Ogino in the English dub of Spirited Away (2002). For her performance as Lilo, she received an Annie Award for Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production. In later years, she appeared in independent films such as Jack Goes Home (2016) and American Romance (2016), her final credited role.

Chase had faced legal issues, including a misdemeanor drug possession charge in Los Angeles in 2018 and a prior arrest in 2017 as a passenger in a stolen vehicle.

The cause of death was complications related to meningitis and septic shock, according to statements from her boyfriend and representatives.