McGowan Charmed by Doherty's Departure?

June 12, 2001 -- You'd think that any woman with a broken engagement to shock-rocker Marilyn Manson in her past would have had her fill of the occult, but Rose McGowan is apparently game for more gothic weirdness.

The former Mrs. Manson-to-be appears to have won the hearts of Spelling Television execs, who have been shopping around for a comely young vixen to join the cast of Charmed. McGowan fits the bill, according to Variety's Michael Fleming, who says a deal is all but done for the 25-year-old actress to replace recently departed Shannen Doherty on the Buffy-esque sudser.

Frankly, this development couldn't have come at a better time for McGowan, whose film career since 1999 has amounted to a starring role in the little-seen black comedy Jawbreaker and supporting parts in Monkeybone and the David Arquette vehicle Ready to Rumble. (Second fiddle in a David Arquette movie? If that's not hard evidence of a voodoo jinx — applied retroactively by a certain jilted rocker, perhaps? — then we couldn't tell you what is.)

Charmed, the WB's second-highest-rated program, chronicles the do-gooding of three sisters, all witches, who live under the same roof; dress in tight, revealing outfits; and fight to keep the world safe from demons, the undead, and yet another weekly rerun of 7th Heaven. If she joins the series, McGowan will partner with regulars Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs for the start of the fourth season.

Doherty bailed on the series in May — supposedly to seek other creative opportunities — after directing the third-season finale, the ironically titled "All Hell Breaks Loose." A report in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly says that Spelling execs initially pursued Tiffani Thiessen, who replaced Doherty on Beverly Hills, 90210, and had also approached the undoubtedly high-priced Jennifer Love Hewitt about the series vacancy.

Since Doherty's departure (a development reportedly much welcomed by her co-stars) did not take shape until after the third season ended, the absence of her character, Prue, will be written into next season's opener. Spelling kingpin Aaron Spelling tells EW that the character to be played by McGowan will be "the long-lost little sister Alyssa and Holly never knew they had."