HOLLYWOOD SWEETHEART

MURPHY GOT HER START IN COMEDY BUT TRANSITIONED TO MORE SERIOUS ROLES ALONGSIDE TOP STARS

“She was a doll and a wonderful actress” CLUELESS DIRECTOR AMY HECKERLING, ON MURPHY

other half of me,” she said. Sharon also spoke highly of Monjack: “The only thing I really regret is that they weren’t together sooner. He put her on a pedestal so high. He would do anything for her.” (Sharon, now 68, couldn’t be reached for comment by People for this story.)

But others close to Murphy never trusted Monjack. Murphy – who had previously dated Ashton Kutcher, her co-star in 2003’s Just Married, and had brief engagements to both talent manager Jeff Kwatinetz and production assistant Joe Macaluso – quickly fell for Monjack after she read a script he had written, and they met for dinner at the Hotel Bel-Air in 2007. A former friend of the star told People in 2010 that a few months before Murphy and Monjack’s wedding, several people sat the actress down for an “intervention” because they were suspicious of Monjack. He had been sued by a mortgage company and by his ex-wife, British TV presenter Simone Bienne, over debts and spent time in US immigration detention for an expired visa.

Still, just four months after they began dating, he and Murphy wed at her Hollywood

Hills home, which she had bought from

Britney Spears in

2003 for $3.9 million. A source says the house fell into complete disarray: “They lived a nocturnal lifestyle, and the house was a mess, packed with stuff Brittany had collected over the years.”

Inseparable and reclusive, the couple cut most people other than Sharon out of their

lives. Murphy’s career began to falter. Rumours of anorexia and unfocused behaviour on-set swirled around her. She lost out on a voice role for Happy Feet 2, was let go from Tinkerbell and The Expendables and was disappointed by the low-budget offers coming in. In the aftermath of her death, Monjack blamed Hollywood for his wife’s unhappiness. “Hollywood is a village, and once you upset the villagers, they talk and they gossip,” he said on the (US) Today show. “They have blood on their hands.”

Monjack – who had spent $3 million of Murphy’s money, publicist Roger Neal claims in the documentary – did several eyebrow-raising interviews, including one in which he gave an on-camera tour of their home, showing the room where his wife had just died. He insisted all he really wanted was more time with Murphy. “I had a life I never dreamed. I’ve seen the sun set on five continents. I’d trade it all for one more day with Brittany. I lost my life. She was my best friend,” he told People.

Then Monjack died, too – and wild theories started to surface about the deaths. Sharon claimed in 2011 that toxic mould in the house could be to blame, but the LA County Medical Examiner’s Office found no indication it was a factor. In 2013 Murphy’s estranged father, Angelo Bertolotti (who was divorced from Sharon when Murphy was 2), spoke out, saying he was seeking “justice for Brittany”. He had a sample of Murphy’s hair sent to a lab, and tests showed dangerous levels of 10 heavy metals. “I have a feeling that there was definitely a murder situation here. It’s poison,” he said in 2019. While pathologist Wecht says “more testing should have been done”, he maintains that poisoning was highly unlikely and says hair samples can often be affected by outside factors, including hair dye. “That’s a theory that is a long way from being proven,” he says. What’s incontrovertible is that her pneumonia and anemia were grave. “The hemoglobin level shown is 3g, and for the normal 32-year-old it would be about 11 to 13,” says Wecht. “The drugs were present, but they were not at such levels as to be lethal. The pneumonia was severe, far advanced.”

As the world still mourns the loss of a talented young star who died too soon, friends of Murphy hope she will be remembered as the loving person they knew. “She loved to dance and have fun and was nice to everyone,” says Manning.

A MOTHER’S HEARTBREAK Sharon Murphy and Monjack (in January 2010) continued to live together after Murphy’s death. “They’re keeping each other going,” Monjack’s mother, Linda, told People at the time. Right: Sharon and Brittany in 2002.

Clueless Murphy’s breakthrough role was opposite Alicia Silverstone (left) and Stacey Dash in the 1995 comedy. “She was like a puppy – very jumpy and excited and happy,” says Clueless director Amy Heckerling. Girl, Interrupted Murphy took on a much more serious role, playing a patient in a mental hospital in the 1999 drama that starred Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder. Don’t Say a Word Murphy teamed up with Michael Douglas to play another mental patient in the 2001 kidnapping thriller. Riding in Cars With Boys Murphy played the spunky best friend to Drew Barrymore’s character in the 2001 drama. 8 Mile “At one point we were very close, and she was a really good person,” Eminem has said of Murphy, who played his girlfriend in the 2002 film.

A sad goodbye Murphy was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood on Dec. 24, 2009. Mourners sprinkled glitter they called fairy dust on the coffin.