Daveigh Chase

Daveigh Elizabeth Chase-Schwallier was born on 24 July 1990 in Las Vegas, Nevada, to Cathy Chase and John David Schwallier. Her parents divorced when she was young and each remarried, so she grew up with several half-siblings, including a younger half-brother named Cade. She later used her mother's surname professionally.

She moved with her mother to Albany, Oregon, where she performed in local talent shows and pageants. She sang country music and won a national vocal competition as a child. According to her manager, she started acting in Las Vegas at around four years old, doing voiceover work and theatre. In 1998 she shared the role of Norma Sanderson in the musical Utah! at the Tuacahn Amphitheatre, which she credited with sharpening her live singing and stage presence. By seven she was attending casting calls in Los Angeles and booking national television commercials, including spots for the Campbell's Soup Company.

Details of Chase's formal schooling were not made public. She trained on the job from early childhood through pageants, vocal competitions, regional musical theatre and television commercials. While she was working as a child actress, she and her mother kept a dual residence, splitting their time between the family home in Oregon and a temporary apartment in Los Angeles to fit her filming schedules.

Chase made her television debut in 1998 with a small part in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In 1999 she played the young Shawna Landon in the television film Michael Landon, the Father I Knew, and over the next two years she appeared in Charmed, The Practice, ER, Yes, Dear, Touched by an Angel and Family Law.

Her breakthrough came in 2001 as Samantha Darko, younger sister of Jake Gyllenhaal's title character in Donnie Darko. The film underperformed in cinemas but became a cult classic. In 2002 she voiced Lilo Pelekai in Disney's Lilo & Stitch, which grossed more than 273 million dollars worldwide, and she won the Annie Award for Outstanding Voice Acting in an Animated Feature. She went on to voice Lilo in Stitch! The Movie (2003), 65 episodes of Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003 to 2006) and Leroy & Stitch (2006). The same year she voiced the heroine Chihiro Ogino in Disney's English dub of Spirited Away, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Also in 2002 she played Samara Morgan in The Ring, the American remake of the Japanese horror film Ring. The role required extensive prosthetic makeup and physical stunt work, made Samara one of the best known screen villains of the decade, and won her the 2003 MTV Movie Award for Best Villain. Archive footage of her performance was used in The Ring Two (2005).

She was a main cast member as Joyce in the Fox sitcom Oliver Beene (2003 to 2004) and appeared in Beethoven's 5th, Carolina, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Cold Case. From 2006 to 2011 she played Rhonda Volmer, the manipulative teenage child bride of prophet Roman Grant, in 32 episodes of HBO's Big Love. She voiced Betsy in the PBS Kids series Betsy's Kindergarten Adventures (2008), returned as Samantha in S. Darko (2009), and later worked mostly in independent films, including Yellow and Little Red Wagon (2012), the television film Killer Crush (2015), Jack Goes Home and American Romance (2016). Her final credit was the English voice of Kiwako Seto in the video game Let It Die (2016).

Her manager and friend of 15 years, John Ryan Jr., said Chase loved cats, volunteered with cat rescues, and kept to herself, often retreating to her home in Las Vegas for years at a time. She kept homes in Nevada and downtown Los Angeles. According to her father, she was emancipated from her mother at 16.

Ryan said she missed a planned meeting with director Rob Reiner in November 2015, after which she lost touch with family and friends. Her mother said Chase struggled with addiction after being prescribed oxycodone and other painkillers for a back injury from a motorcycle accident around 2016; her father said she had struggled with drugs since about the age of 13. Her mother last saw her in person during a jail visit in October 2019. In her final years Chase was reported to be homeless in downtown Los Angeles, and Ryan had begun work on a documentary about his search for her, to be titled Finding Lilo. At the time of her death she was in a relationship with Roy Hernandez.

Chase rarely gave interviews about her personal beliefs, and no public statements of her political or religious views were found. Those who knew her described an actress who loved the craft but not celebrity. "She loved acting but wasn't into the fame scene," her manager said, adding that she preferred independent projects to big studio films.

Chase is remembered for two contrasting performances in a single year: the warm, funny and grieving Lilo, and the terrifying Samara, a figure that became a lasting horror icon and a staple of Halloween costumes. Her English voice for Chihiro introduced many American viewers to Studio Ghibli. After her death, Lilo & Stitch co-directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois shared an original image of a crying Stitch with Scrump and Pudge, and outlets from the BBC to Variety reflected on her work and on the pressures faced by child actors. Her death also prompted wider discussion about homelessness, addiction and HIV care in Los Angeles.

Chase received three awards from six nominations. She won the Annie Award for Outstanding Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production for Lilo & Stitch at the 30th Annie Awards in 2003, the 2003 MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for The Ring, and a 2003 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Voice-Over Role (Age 10 or Under) for Lilo & Stitch. She was nominated for a 2002 Young Artist Award for Touched by an Angel and twice by the Phoenix Film Critics Society in 2003, for The Ring and Lilo & Stitch.

Film: Donnie Darko (2001), Spirited Away (English dub, voice of Chihiro), Lilo & Stitch (2002), The Ring (2002), Carolina (2003), Stitch! The Movie (2003), Beethoven's 5th (2003), S. Darko (2009), Yellow (2012), Little Red Wagon (2012), Jack Goes Home (2016), American Romance (2016).

Television: Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1998), Michael Landon, the Father I Knew (1999), Charmed, ER and The Practice (2000), Touched by an Angel (2001), Oliver Beene (2003 to 2004), Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003 to 2006), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Cold Case (2004), Leroy & Stitch (2006), Big Love (2006 to 2011), Betsy's Kindergarten Adventures (2008), Without a Trace (2008), Mercy (2009), Killer Crush (2015).

Video games: Disney's Lilo & Stitch and Lilo & Stitch: Trouble in Paradise (2002), Let It Die (2016).

After she stopped acting, Chase had several encounters with the law in Los Angeles. In November 2017 she was arrested on a felony charge after being found as a passenger in a vehicle reported stolen. In August 2018 she was arrested on a misdemeanour drug possession charge and released on a 1,000 dollar bond, and by November 2018 she faced two misdemeanour counts, possession of a controlled substance without a valid prescription and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In June 2026 Chase was admitted to Los Angeles General Medical Center for severe malnutrition after extreme weight loss. In hospital she was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis and several bloodstream infections. Her boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, launched a GoFundMe appeal, writing that doctors had said she might not have much time left. She died in hospital on Tuesday 16 June 2026, aged 35, and Hernandez announced her death through TMZ on 17 June.

On 29 June 2026 the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner listed the cause of death as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), with chronic polysubstance use as another significant condition, and the manner of death as natural. Her former manager and her father publicly urged fans not to donate to the GoFundMe, saying her family was handling arrangements and her estate could cover them. According to her death certificate, she was cremated on 10 July 2026 and her ashes were released to her mother, Cathy Chase. Probate papers filed on 8 July 2026 said she died without a will, survived by her parents, and left about 400,000 dollars in personal property.