lab partner. (And, presumably, to cheat off
the newly arrived kid from Minnesota. “Are
you smart?” she asked.) “At the start, Kelly
was your typical rich Beverly Hills socialite.
Very spoiled and used to getting whatever
she wanted,” said Jennie Garth.
Six episodes in, viewers discovered that
there was more to the credit-card-slinging
Beverly Hills beauty than met the eye when
Kelly’s glamorous model mother turned
out to be an alcoholic and a cocaine addict,
forcing Kelly to be the real grown-up in
the house. A few episodes later, during a
slumber party at Brenda’s house, Kelly tear-
fully revealed that she was date-raped as a
freshman. It was “my fi rst story line where I
got to actually act,” Garth recalled. Up until
then, “I was working off my instincts, and
[then] I tapped into something that was like,
‘Oh my God, maybe I am an actress. Maybe I
can do this.’ ”
Over the next 10 years Kelly suff ered one
calamity after another. She was severely
burned in a fi re; joined a cult; was kidnapped
and almost murdered by a stalker; suff ered
from drug addiction; had a miscarriage; was
raped and then killed her rapist. At times
even Garth admitted the drama was OTT.
“The lesbian stalker was really ridiculous
for me,” she told The New York Times. “And
then the one where I got burned in the fi re.
I had to wear burn makeup on my neck and
my face, and then it just magically went away
one day. No scars whatsoever. I healed.”
None of those sudsy plot twists were as
compelling as Kelly’s bumpy love life. Her
fl irtation with bad-boy biker Jake Hansen
(Grant Show) in season 2 led to the Melrose
Place spinoff , but her tortured romancesTHE SPOILED RICH KID
GOT A RUN FOR HER
MONEY IN PLOTLINES
INVOLVING DRUGS,
MURDER, A CULT AND A
STALKER—AND LOTS OF
TEEN ROMANCE
(^)
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(^90)
2 1 0
B
EV
E R L Y^ H
IL
L
S
Jennie (^) Gar
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as