Daveigh Chase, Disney’s Lilo Voice Actor and ‘The Ring’ Villain, Dies at 35

Daveigh Chase, who voiced Lilo in Disney’s original animated movie “Lilo & Stitch” and terrified audiences as Samara Morgan in “The Ring,” died Tuesday, according to TMZ. She was 35.

Chase’s boyfriend told TMZ, which broke the news of her death, that she died from meningitis and an infection in her blood after being hospitalized in Los Angeles for malnutrition earlier this month.

Chase got her big break by voicing Lilo Pelekai, the young Hawaiian protagonist in Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch,” in 2002. For her role, she won an Annie Award for outstanding voice acting in an animated feature production and went on to lend her voice to in several spinoffs, like “Stitch! The Movie” (2003), “Leroy & Stitch” (2006) and Disney Channel’s “Lilo & Stitch: The Series.”

She also voiced the lead character Chihiro Ogino in the English-dubbed version of Hayao Miyazaki’s hit Japanese animated movie “Spirited Away.”

In live-action, Chase had a terrifying turn as Samara Morgan, the creepy little girl who created the cursed video tape in the 2002 horror movie “The Ring.” Samara was also played by Kelly Stables and contortionist Bonnie Morgan, who famously climbed out of a TV in one of the most iconic scenes of the horror genre. Chase’s performance was also used as archival footage in the 2005 sequel “The Ring Two” and 2017’s “Rings.”

Chase also played Samantha Darko, the younger sister of Jake Gyllenhaal’s lead character in “Donnie Dark,” and she starred in the direct-to-video sequel, “S. Darko,” in 2009. In TV, she starred in HBO’s “Big Love” and voiced the lead character in PBS Kids’ “Betsy’s Kindergarten Adventures.” Her last acting roles came in 2016.