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Former child star Daveigh Chase, who established a varied career with a haunting turn as Samara Morgan in \u201cThe Ring\u201d and as the bighearted outcast Lilo in Disney\u2019s \u201cLilo & Stitch,\u201d has died. <\/p>\n
The actor\u2019s father, John David Schwallier, confirmed to the New York Times<\/a> that Chase died in a hospital of complications from bacterial meningitis and a blood infection. TMZ<\/a> first broke the news of Chase\u2019s death on Wednesday, citing the actor\u2019s boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, who said the actor also dealt with septic issues before her death. Additionally, Chase battled with drug addiction and was homeless before her death. She was 35. <\/p>\n Chase began her Hollywood career in the late 1990s with minor roles in popular TV series including \u201cSabrina the Teenage Witch,\u201d \u201cCharmed\u201d and \u201cER,\u201d and would go on to star in multiple beloved movies at the turn of the century. In 2001 cult classic \u201cDonnie Darko,\u201d she was Samantha, the younger sister to Jake Gyllenhaal\u2019s troubled Donnie Darko. She would reprise the role eight years later for the sequel, \u201cS. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale\u201d<\/p>\n The same year as \u201cDonnie Darko,\u201d Chase lent her voice to the American dub of Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s tender \u201cSpirited Away,\u201d voicing its brave and stubborn protagonist Chihiro. The film won the animated feature prize at the 2003 Academy Awards. <\/p>\n Chase gained a reputation for her range, further supported by roles in \u201cLilo & Stitch\u201d and \u201cThe Ring\u201d in the same year. In the former, she voiced the Elvis-loving Lilo who finds the solution for her outcast status in a mischievous alien. That performance earned Chase an Annie Award for voice acting in an animated film in 2003 and secured her the lead voice-acting role in Disney Channel\u2019s follow-up series. Months after \u201cLilo & Stitch\u201d hit the big screen, audiences would see Chase turn down the charm and turn up the scares for her stint as ghost girl Samara Morgan in \u201cThe Ring,\u201d the first in a series of films. The horror classic is a remake of a 1998 Japanese film based off Koji Suzuki\u2019s 1991 novel. <\/p>\n Most memorably, Chase\u2019s Samara is clad in a nightgown and obscured by a head of jet black hair, an eerie look that would become iconic for horror fans and, eventually, fodder for laughs in \u201cScary Movie 3.\u201d Chase told the The Times in 2002<\/a> of playing the iconic character: \u201c I just kind of took my own voice and put this freaky twist on it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe producer for this movie told me she was a lot like Linda Blair in \u2018The Exorcist,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cI saw part of that, and what really freaked me out was when she was crawling up upside down and backwards down the stairs \u2014 kind of like the spider.\u201d<\/p>\n