Brittany Murphy had been in the public eye for over 15 years, starting out in Hollywood when she was 14. Murphy`s big break, however, came in 1995, when she was cast as Tai, the outcast-turned-makeover-project-turned-popularity-queen in Amy Heckerling`s ‘Clueless’. Though ‘Clueless’ brought Murphy in spotlight and later cult favourite status, her next big role in the 90s didn`t come until 1999, when she cast in ‘Girl, Interrupted’ as a suicidal incest victim living in a mental hospital alongside the likes of Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie.
But after a decade of playing sidekicks and outcasts, Murphy reinvented herself as a romantic lead, dying her hair blonde and losing a dramatic amount of weight by 2001. Murphy`s career soared following the dramatic makeover, kicking off with a dark love-interest role in the Eminem film ‘8 Mile’ and a romantic comedy she shot with Ashton Kutcher, called ‘Just Married’. In 2004, she starred in the romantic comedy ‘Little Black Book,’ and the critically acclaimed ‘Sin City.’ The fact that Murphy was dropped by her agent and publicist around the time ‘Sin City’ was released in 2005, alongside rumors of her drug use, may account for the dip in her career. Later in May 2007, Murphy married British screenwriter Simon Monjack in a private Jewish ceremony. Murphy`s story is as old as Hollywood itself: a starlet who works her way up from bit player to headliner, only to see her career fall apart, and all within a matter of years.