Daveigh Chase, the American actress best known for voicing Lilo in Disney's animated film Lilo & Stitch and for her unsettling turn as the ghost Samara Morgan in the horror film The Ring, has died at the age of 35. Chase died from sepsis following a bout of meningitis at a hospital in Los Angeles, her longtime manager John Ryan Jr confirmed. She had been admitted to the hospital in early June suffering from severe malnourishment, with doctors expressing concern for her life from the time of her admission.
Chase packed a remarkable range of roles into a career that began almost in infancy. She started doing voiceover work and theatre in Las Vegas at around age 4, and landed her first television role at 7 in a small part on the popular American sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Her breakthrough came in 2001 when she appeared in the cult science-fiction film Donnie Darko, before delivering two defining performances in 2002. As Samara Morgan — the long-haired ghost who crawls out of a television screen — in The Ring, an American remake of a Japanese horror classic, she won an MTV Movie Award for best villain. That same year she voiced the Elvis-loving Hawaiian girl Lilo in Lilo & Stitch, earning an Annie Award for best voice acting in an animated feature. She went on to reprise the role in several sequels and a spin-off series. She was also the English-language voice of the protagonist Chihiro in the acclaimed Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away. Later, she took on a 32-episode recurring role in the HBO drama Big Love, playing a child bride in a story centred on a fundamentalist polygamist family.
Despite her early success, Chase stepped away from full-time acting in 2015. Her manager described a person who was deliberately removed from the Hollywood spotlight — someone who preferred a quiet meal at a diner and returning home to her cats over the trappings of celebrity life. She divided her time between homes in Las Vegas and downtown Los Angeles, and would sometimes spend years at a time away from the industry, turning down major studio projects in favour of independent work. In her later years she faced legal troubles, including charges related to drug possession and joyriding in a stolen vehicle, and reportedly became estranged from her family.
Chase's death has prompted an outpouring of remembrance from fans of both Lilo & Stitch — a film widely regarded as one of Disney's more emotionally resonant works of the early 2000s — and The Ring, whose release made her face one of the most recognisable in horror cinema. She was 35 years old. No further details about memorial arrangements have been announced.