and seniors of West Beverly High to protest, demand-
ing, “Donna Martin graduates!”
Throughout the remainder of the 1990s, the pair-
ing of Donna and David would be tested by cheating
(David was the guilty party— more than once), crystal-
meth addiction (David) and check forgery (David
again). But the couple’s most consistent and, in a show
largely defi ned by teen sex, most far-fetched story line
was Donna’s determination to remain a virgin until
marriage. That particular roadblock to romance was
thrown up by executive producer Aaron Spelling, who
despite once being called the “king of T&A” for his racy
TV résumé (he created Charlie’s Angels), was down-
right puritan when it came to the defl owering of his
daughter’s character. Finally, seven seasons into the
series, “Fox said, ‘C’mon, she’s not a baby anymore!’ ”
the elder Spelling later recalled. Just after graduat-
ing from college, 208 episodes into the series, a newly
brunette Donna, dressed in virginal white lingerie,
slept with David. “How did I get so lucky?” he asked
her. “Because you waited,” she replied.
As with any good soap, however, this was no happily
ever after—yet. Donna still had to endure an attempt-
ed rape at knifepoint, an abusive relationship with
a moody musician and some seriously questionable
hairstyles (those butterfl y hair clips) before she and
David walked down the aisle in a wedding ceremony
that closed out the series in 2000. “Without you my
soul would be empty, my heart broken, my being in-
complete,” a weepy Donna told her groom.
MEET THE CLASS OF 1993
38 BEVERLY HILLS 90210 PEOPLE
FANGIRL
“I’m such a sap. I watch the reruns on FX,” Spelling (with costar Jamie Walters as Donna’s musician boyfriend Ray) said in 2000.
“I’ll be on the StairMaster [watching] and someone will walk in, and I’ll be so embarrassed.”
IT’S GREAT TO
HAVE A MODEL
LIKE HER ON TV
TO COUNTERACT
THE IDEA THAT
YOU CAN’T BE
COOL UNLESS YOU
SLEEP WITH YOUR
BOYFRIENDÓ
—TORI SPELLING
