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Daveigh Chase, the former child actor best known for voicing Lilo in Disney’s 2002 animated film Lilo & Stitch and for playing Samara Morgan in The Ring, has died at the age of 35 after complications from meningitis.
Her death was announced by her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, who told TMZ that Chase died Tuesday. Hernandez had recently set up a GoFundMe page for the actor as her health condition became critical.
Chase became widely known to international audiences in 2002 through two sharply different roles. In Lilo & Stitch, she voiced Lilo, the young Hawaiian girl at the center of the animated film’s story.
That same year, she appeared in The Ring as Samara Morgan, the disturbing figure at the heart of the horror film. Her performance later brought her the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.
According to Hernandez, Chase had recently been diagnosed with meningitis, an infection that can cause inflammation around the brain and spinal cord, along with several serious blood infections.
In the GoFundMe page he set up before her death, Hernandez said doctors had warned that Chase’s condition had become critical and that she “may not have much time left.”
Her death brings renewed attention to the actor’s early career, which left a strong mark on both family animation and horror cinema through two memorable performances released in the same year.
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