Brittany Benov

Brittany Elizabeth Benov (December 14, 1980 – March 12, 2005) was an American actress and singer.

Born in Fresno, Benov gained attention performing on stage at a young age and soon landed a number of roles in television, film, and video games. She moved to New York City after graduating high school and pursued a career in musical theatre, but was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. As her mental health began to deteriorate, she began to have suicidal thoughts and was hospitalized on New Year's Eve 2004 after overdosing on pills. She was released from the hospital but died a few months later from another overdose in the New York apartment of a man she had just met.

Early life
Brittany Benov was born on December 14, 1980, in Fresno, California. She recalled that she was delivered by her grandfather, calling it "probably the least normal way to come into the world." She was able to talk in full sentences at the age of two and was soon competing in beauty pageants. She attended Forkner Elementary School and had dreams of becoming a Broadway star from a young age.

Child acting and first roles
At the age of six Benov began performing on stage, and gained attention during the finals of the Universal Pageant System in Orlando, Florida, in which she moved an audience to tears with her emotional portrayal of Marie Antoinette. An agent was in the crowd and took an interest in her, and Benov soon landed a number of roles on television. She appeared in a number of Macy's commercials as well as ads for Fresno's Fashion Furniture which played throughout the area and gained her significant exposure.

During this period Benov provided the voice of a talking doll that was released when she was in third grade. She also had an uncredited role in the film Willow, which was produced by George Lucas. However she claimed she did not wish to keep acting when she was older, but wanted to be a book editor as she loved reading.

In 1989 Benov appeared in the final episode of Highway to Heaven alongside Michael Landon. In 1991 she began working with Sierra Entertainment and voiced characters in their computer games. She was the voice of Delphineus the dolphin in EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus and also provided voices in Mixed-Up Mother Goose.

In her teenage years, Benov landed a role on the television show Fox 26 Kids Crew on KMPH-TV, in which she advised young people to read and become active in their community, and warned them about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. She began to consider a career in opera and won several awards as a singer and dancer, performing in Roger Rockas' Junior Company and sang the national anthem for many of California State University, Fresno's games. Despite her apparent success, Benov became increasingly stressed due to the pressure she was under, and began acting out. One night she went to a dance and was detained along with a number of other students for breaking curfew. Benov recalled that one of the officers angrily told her that his daughter watched her on television but never would again.

As her mental health declined Benov began seeing Susan Brown, a clinical psychologist, who felt Benov had been pressured to excel by her parents from a young age. Benov told Brown that she had never felt like a child, but a performer, and according to her family and friends she was sometimes mean, on one occasion telling other students to pick up her discarded costumes backstage.

She later attended Bullard High School, graduating in 1998. She continued to perform, dancing as a pep girl and joining the jazz band. She was thrilled to be one of three students nation-wide to be accepted to the prestigious Manhattan School of Music in Vocal Jazz studies, and soon after moved to New York City. Though she was thought of as a star back in Fresno, she rarely spoke to her friends in New York about her early life. As she began college she hoped to become a professional singer, and was selected to be part of her school's musical theatre. She came close to failing, but eventually graduated in May 2003.

Bipolar diagnosis
Following her sophomore year of college, Benov was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. As her dreams of achieving fame on Broadway didn't come to pass, Benov began acting erratically and struggled to maintain relationships with her friends. She began to miss classes in college and struggled with her grades, and became increasingly isolated, often writing in her diary of her self-hatred and her belief that she was a failure. She also wrote in an essay that she did not want to live much longer, calling it a "calm realization." According to friends, Benov had been popular with boys at school but struggled when it came to dating, as she could be obsessive and felt that she was unworthy of being loved. In 1999 she began dating a man named Florian Ammer but the relationship was rocky as she felt he did not do enough to show his love. She began self-harming and eventually had a fight with Ammer in which she tried to cut him with broken glass. They subsequently ended their relationship and Benov later dated another student, but left him after a fight in which Benov claimed he had assaulted her.

Her relations with her family began to deteriorate as well, as she became estranged from her brother and on one occasion threatened to kill her mother during a fight, but then stated that she would instead kill herself in front of her because that would be the worst thing she could do to her. However at other times she told her friends that her mother was a critical support system for her.

As her mental health declined Benov lost her job and went on public assistance to buy groceries. She was repeatedly hospitalized, once with roommates who smeared feces on the walls. She began to stop going to concerts and musicals, stating she could not stand to see them because they reminded her of how much she had lost. She wrote in her diary of how she had failed to achieve her ambitions, stating "I was an All-American cheerleader. I was a person. And yet one day, seemingly overnight, I ceased to exist."

New Year's Eve party and hospitalization
On December 31, 2004, Benov attended a New Year's Eve party, but the evening took a turn for the worse when she asked a stranger for a midnight kiss and he refused. Distraught, Benov entered the restroom and cut her throat with a shard of glass, but inflicted only superficial wounds. She later returned home and took an overdose of pills, but later called her psychologist for help. She was told to leave the door unlocked so the paramedics could enter, and was taken to the hospital.

Benov was eventually discharged from the hospital and claimed she was feeling better. She told her family that she had learned her lesson and wasn't trying to kill herself. However her mental state continued to deteriorate, and she began keeping notes on how she struggled to maintain relationships, detailing arguments she would have internally between her "wise" and "emotional" minds.

Death
On the night of March 11, 2005, Benov met a man in a New York bar and spent the night with him in his apartment. The following morning, the man discovered Benov in her bed and in distress after he returned from walking his dog. Paramedics were summoned and found Benov had taken an overdose of opiates, cocaine, and several other drugs. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiners believed her death was accidental, with a spokeswoman stating that anyone who dies of an overdose is presumed to have died an accidental death unless there was clear evidence of suicidal intent. Her remains were later cremated.