Jennie Garth Turns 40: From Beverly Hills, 90210 to A Little Bit Country

Garth left high school in Arizona to move to Los Angeles and pursue an acting career. She later received her high school diploma in California. She doesn’t look that different from the types of girls she played on television, including Kelly Taylor with her 1980s hair. Back in Arizona, Garth wanted to open a dancing studio when she grew up. Garth’s high school days were not all glamour. She remembers many different after-school jobs she had: “I worked as a secretary, a waitress, and a dance teacher—all in high school. I taught 3-year-olds how to tap-dance. I think I was the only one with the patience to do it.” Kelly Taylor would have died first or hired someone else to do it for her.

In her first credited TV appearance in the popular show Growing Pains in 1989, she handles herself like a veteran in her scenes. In less than a year, she’d land one of the lead roles in the Aaron Spelling hit Beverly Hills, 90210. She flirts with both brothers in this clip from the episode of Growing Pains.

Just before her seminal role as Kelly Taylor in Beverly Hills, 90210, Garth played Ericka McCray in the short-lived TV series A Brand New Life, about a girl whose mother marries a millionaire and they move to a mansion in Bel Air. Check out this YouTube clip from the show. Garth’s character is a cross between Kelly Taylor and Brenda Walsh.

Grant Show appeared toward the end of season 2 of Beverly Hills, 90210 as Jake, who Kelly (Jennie Garth) starts to date. This relationship is set up and carried over into the series Melrose Place, where Jennie Garth appears as Jake’s love interest in the pilot. Darren Star, the show’s creator, and Aaron Spelling used Garth, Ian Ziering, Tori Spelling, and Brian Austin Green to appear in several of the first episodes of the series.

Jennie Garth met Peter Facinelli while working with him on this steamy TV movie about a young woman who seduces the son of the man who rejects her. Facinelli, just a year and a half younger than Garth, plays the seduced son. The couple fell in love in real life and married in 2001. They just recently and very publicly split. They have three daughters: Luca, 14, Lola, 9, and Fiona, 5.

Beverly Hills, 90210 ran for an entire decade. Ten seasons of young adult drama—Jennie Garth as Kelly Taylor and Shannen Doherty as Brenda Walsh were there from the beginning. The two were sometimes friends, sometimes enemies, sometimes frenemies, but that ended in 1994 when Doherty was written off the show due to undisclosed on-the-set tension among some cast members. Garth appeared for the entire run of the show. Both actresses reprised their roles for the more recent incarnation of the show starting in 2008, 90210.

Garth plays Gillian Sherman, who isn’t the most compassionate character, in the short-lived Darren Star-created series for Fox about Wall Street, The $treet. Only six out of eleven episodes aired in the United States. The $treet was the third show Garth worked on with Star (after Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place). Three isn’t always a charm.

In the WB (now known as the CW) TV comedy What I Like About You,, Jennie Garth plays Valerie Tyler, first a PR executive, later an owner of her own bakery, who allows her younger sister Holly (Amanda Bynes) to move in with her in New York City when their father moves to Japan for business. 90210 alum Jason Priestley appears in two episodes in 2005 as Charlie, a potential love interest for Garth.

Jennie Garth appeared on season 5 of Dancing with the Stars. She and dance partner Derek Hough were the ninth couple to get voted off. Garth admitted she had issues performing in front of people but credits Hough with helping her tackle any fears. They did make it all the way to fourth place; maybe her dreams of becoming a dancer as a teenager helped inspire her, although tap, jazz, and ballet are different than the tango.

Jennie Garth believes her family comes first and strives to be the best mom she can be. In this photo, Garth celebrates School Year’s Eve, a new national celebration designed by Cookie magazine and the PTA to get kids excited about going to school—apparently by eating cookies right before school starts at special designated parties. It’s a good thing, then, that Garth also believes in walking to school with her kids to battle childhood obesity. She was the spokeswoman for International Walk to School Month. That was in October, a month after all those cookie parties.

Garth decided to move her family to the Santa Ynez Valley. CMT calls it Central California, but it isn’t. That would be Jennie Garth moving her family to a dairy farm in Tulare. The Santa Ynez Valley is just an hour away from where Garth had another ranch in Santa Barbara. It’s actually considered the Central Coast. This reality television show will deal with Garth’s family and how they fare with country life vs. life in Los Angeles. And yes, CMT has confirmed in an upcoming episode the divorce will be dealt with. It almost sounds like an episode of 90210. Or a new Darren Star soap.