brittany murphy

Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack (November 10, 1977 – December 20, 2009),known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys. She voiced Luanne Platter on the animated TV series King of the Hill. Her final film, Abandoned, was released direct-to-DVD on August 24, 2010.

Brittany Anne Murphy was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 10, 1977. Her parents, Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti, divorced when she was two years old, and Murphy was raised by her mother in Edison, New Jersey, where she attended Edison High School.

Bertolotti was sufficiently estranged from the family that he was not named as the father on the first death certificate. The family later moved to Los Angeles so that Murphy could pursue an acting career.

Murphy said her mother never tried to stifle her creativity, and she considered her mother a crucial factor in her later success: "When I asked my mom to move to California, she sold everything and moved out here for me. ... She always believed in me." Murphy's mother is of Irish and Eastern European descent and her father is Italian American. She was raised a Baptist and later became a non-denominational Christian. She had two older half-brothers and a younger half-sister.

In late 2002, Murphy began dating Ashton Kutcher, her co-star in Just Married.Once engaged to talent manager Jeff Kwatinetz, Murphy became engaged to Joe Macaluso in December 2005, a production assistant she met while working on the film Little Black Book. In August 2006, they ended their engagement. 

In May 2007, Murphy married British screenwriter Simon Monjack in a private Jewish ceremony in Los Angeles. For the last three and a half years of her life, Murphy, her mother and Monjack lived together in the same house.

In the early 2000s, Murphy lost a large amount of weight, which led to rumors of cocaine addiction. In 2005, Murphy disputed such claims to Jane magazine, saying, "No, just for the record I have never tried it in my entire life, I've never even seen it, and I don't leave the house too much, except to go to work."