Elisa Donovan Says She Saw Warning Signs Before Brittany Murphy’s Death

Elisa Donovan Gets Candid About Brittany Murphy’s Final Years

Actress Elisa Donovan delivers an intimate, raw interview on Still Here Hollywood with Steve Kmetko, revisiting everything from her forevermore recognizable Clueless character Amber to the role in Showgirls she was convinced was going to be hers.

But the conversation takes a much more bittersweet turn when Donovan begins talking about Brittany Murphy. What follows is one of the more insightful firsthand conversations we’ve heard about Murphy’s final years — not because Donovan pretends to have every answer, but because she is unusually clear about what she personally saw, what worried her at the time, and what she did not know.

Donovan first remembers the Brittany from the Clueless set: funny, frenetic, vibrant and “like a hummingbird.” She shares a hilarious memory of Murphy insisting she could handle her own hair touch-up, grabbing a curling iron and accidentally burning herself while the hair-and-makeup team tried desperately to stop her. “She was so vibrant and so talented,” Donovan says. “That was a shame. Real shame.”

Elisa Donovan Says Brittany Murphy’s Death Did Not Completely Surprise Her

When Kmetko asks where she was when she learned Murphy had died in December 2009, Donovan recalls being in Los Angeles and heading to Mexico when someone called with the news. Her first reaction is striking: “I wasn’t surprised really.”

She is careful to explain why. Donovan says she and Murphy were not close friends by that point, but they shared a hairstylist who had privately expressed concern about Murphy. Donovan says she was worried too, yet felt she was no longer close enough to simply insert herself into Murphy’s life.

The last time Donovan remembers seeing Murphy was at the GLAAD Awards. Murphy greeted her with the same huge warmth Donovan remembered — ecstatic hellos, hugs, that unmistakable Brittany energy — but Donovan says she immediately noticed something was wrong. She recalls Murphy’s knees appearing to buckle and her legs shaking on the press line. Backstage, the concern only deepened.

“She’s not healthy. Like she is not okay. And why is no one helping her?” Donovan remembers thinking.

Donovan then makes a more serious disclosure. Because she had publicly discussed her own history with an eating disorder, she says she believed she recognized signs in Murphy that alarmed her. Donovan also says she suspected a drug problem. Those are Donovan’s recollections and conclusions from the time, not a medical diagnosis. Murphy had publicly denied eating-disorder and illegal-drug rumors during her life.

The official Los Angeles County coroner’s finding after Murphy’s death was different and specific: her death at age 32 was ruled accidental, with community-acquired pneumonia listed as the primary cause and iron-deficiency anemia and multiple drug intoxication as contributing factors. Officials said the medications involved were prescription and over-the-counter drugs; no illegal drugs were found.

What makes Donovan’s account hit is the helplessness in it. She remembers looking at Murphy and wondering who around her was stepping in, while simultaneously recognizing the uncomfortable truth that she herself was someone from Murphy’s past, not a person embedded in her everyday life. “What am I going to do? Come this person from her past and come in and save the day?” she asks.

She also noticed Murphy’s career changing. The larger movies became less frequent, and Donovan says she interpreted that as another sign that something in Murphy’s life was going wrong. Her observation about Hollywood is especially sharp: the industry will hold someone up as long as that person can keep delivering what it needs, and when they cannot, the people offering structure and guidance can begin to disappear.

That is why Donovan pushes back on the conspiracy theories that have surrounded Murphy’s death for years. Her position in the interview is far less sensational: she believed Murphy was visibly unwell before she died. It is Donovan’s personal reading of what she witnessed, but hearing it laid out with this much detail — alongside the memory of the vibrant, hummingbird-energy young actress she first knew — makes the segment especially heartbreaking.

Interview images: Still Here Hollywood YouTube.

Elsewhere in the interview, Donovan gets into the wonderfully messy business of being Amber: the intimidating Clueless audition, the real junior-high mean girls who helped inspire the character, Mona May’s ever-evolving wardrobe, and finally reconnecting with Alicia Silverstone enough to compare notes on what making that movie actually felt like for them at the time.

She also reveals just how close she came to playing Nomi Malone in Showgirls. Donovan says she went through multiple auditions, met director Paul Verhoeven and became convinced she was getting the part before it ultimately went to Elizabeth Berkley. The loss devastated her enough to make her question whether she wanted to keep doing this at all. Miss Donovan came with the hot topics — but the Brittany Murphy chapter is the one that stays with you.

Elisa Donovan Talks Brittany Murphy, Clueless and Showgirls on Still Here Hollywood

Watch Elisa Donovan’s full conversation with Steve Kmetko, including her memories of Brittany Murphy, the making of Clueless and the Showgirls role she nearly landed.

Source: Still Here Hollywood / Steve Kmetko. Interview images: Still Here Hollywood YouTube.