More than a decade after Michael Lehmann’s ’80s cult classic Heathers hit theaters, the cast was left shaken by the passing star Kim Walker. The actress, who starred as Heather Chandler in the hit film, tragically died of a brain tumor at her Los Angeles home on March 6, 2001. She was 32.
Walker’s passing came nearly 12 years to the date of Heathers‘ U.S. theatrical release on March 31, 1989. Now considered to be a cult classic, the movie centers around a clique known as the Heathers – Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty), Heather McNamara (Lisanne Falk), and queen bee Heather Chandler (Walker) – at an Ohio high school. Their lives are disrupted and put on the line when Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) becomes part of the group but quickly grows tired of their abuse of power. She teamed up with new student Jason “J.D.” Dean (Christian Slater) to confront clique leader Heather Chandler, accidentally poisoning her and making it appear a suicide. The movie also starred Penelope Milford as Pauline Fleming, Glenn Shadix as Father Ripper, Lance Fenton as Kurt Kelly, Patrick Labyorteaux as Ram Sweeney, and Jeremy Applegate as Peter Dawson.
From left to right, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker and Winona Ryder on set of the film ‘Heathers’, 1988.
– New World Pictures/Getty Images)
Heathers went on to win the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, with writer Daniel Waters winning the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. The movie, which has since been an adapted into a musical and a television reboot, also became a cult classic, and many of the stars maintained close relationships.
Walker followed her role in Heathers with Nervous Ticks (1992) and The Favor (1994), as well as appearances in episodes of The Outsiders, Picket Fences, and Matlock, per her IMDb profile. She even reunited with Falk in Say Anything… (1989). Her final role was in 2000’s Killing Cinderella before she died in 2001, her passing deeply affecting fellow actress Jennifer Aniston, whom she had been close friends with.
“The girls were terribly close. They shared an apartment and did everything together. And they both shared the same dream of becoming big Hollywood stars,” a source previously told the Daily Mail. “When Kim told Jennifer she was sick and doctors didn’t give her long to live, Jennifer was beside herself. Kim was just 32, one year older than Jen, and it didn’t seem right that her friend should have to face something as devastating and final as this… it made her physically sick to think her friend was facing certain death from such a debilitating diagnosis and there was nothing she could do. When Kim died, Jennifer was inconsolable.”
Walker is one of several Heathers stars who has tragically passed in the years since the film’s release. Just a year before Walker’s death, Applegate passed away in March 2000 at the age of 34. In September 2010, Shadix died at the age of 58 after suffering a fall. Most recently, Doherty passed away in July 2024 at the age of 53 following a years-long battle with cancer.
Reflecting on the loss of her fellow Heathers, Falk wrote after Doherty’s passing, “Tragically, Heather Chandler never had the chance to reflect, and now Heather Duke was interrupted just as she was clearing her throat. If it is Heather McNamara’s fate to have the last word for the Heather’s, then let it be this: It’s been an honor to occupy our own little patch of the zeitgeist, together as one, out here on the fringe, where all the cool kids hang, a cult classic. Thank you, Heather. And Heather.”