Brittany Murphy: Her "Rare," "Erratic" Career

Actress was acclaimed for talent as she was noted for being different

Brittany Murphy's career was marked by transformations—from child actor to Clueless teen to "It" girl to Saturday Night Live punchline. One thing, however, never changed, especially after she found breakout stardom: the book on Murphy.

She was different.

With Murphy's sudden death today at age 32, the question is, what did "different" mean, exactly? If it meant anything at all.

Different can mean "difficult," a catchall Hollywood descriptor for jerks, perfectionists and free spirits, and applied to Murphy by the New York Times in 2002. (The story noted she'd been fired by a publicist.)

Different can mean "extremely difficult," as in the Murphy of a 2008 New York Post item. (According to the paper, Murphy required a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—diagonally cut, no crusts—on the hour, every hour on the set of the just-released, if barely, thriller Across the Hall.)

Or it can mean "erratic" (per a 2004 MSNBC report on Murphy's behavior at a press junket for Uptown Girls), and "barely there" (per the Wrap on Murphy's behavior during the recently completed shoot for another thriller, Something Wicked.)

Different can also mean just different, as in Murphy sounding like Madonna sounding like a proper Brit this past spring on Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show. 

Or it can mean unique. As in uniquely talented.

Murphy, who'd been acting since the boy-band days of ABC's "TGIF" sitcoms (Sister, Sister, Boy Meets World), was forever turning heads—from her "terrific" turn as the mute teen in the Michael Douglas thriller Don't Say a Word to her big-voiced belting at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards to her "sharp, sexy" star-making performance in Eminem's 8 Mile.

In a review of 2003's Just Married, which paired Murphy with future boyfriend Ashton Kutcher, Roger Ebert panned the film and praised half of its star tandem. The Murphy half.

"With her fraught eyes and husky voice, she has a rare and particular quality (I think of Jennifer Jason Leigh)," Ebert wrote. 

Just Married was one of three movies Murphy starred in after 8 Mile. Uptown Girls and Little Black Book were the others. Bruce Willis' Sin City, in which Murphy costarred, followed. And then, as fast as it caught fire, the career, two decades in the making, flamed out.

Of all the things different means, it doesn't mean forever.