Dating & Relationship status

On January 31, 1988, O’Rourke began exhibiting flu-like symptoms. The following morning she collapsed in her home, and was rushed to Community Hospital in El Cajon. En route, she suffered cardiac arrest, but paramedics were able to restart her heart at 9:25 a.m. She was subsequently air-flighted to the Children’s Hospital of San Diego, where it was discovered she had intestinal stenosis, she went into emergency surgery. Heather survied the surgery but suffered another cardiac arrest whilst being transfered to the recovery room, Doctors performed CPR for over 30 mins but sadly at 2:43 pm Heather passed. O’Rourke’s cause of death was ruled congenital stenosis of the intestine complicated by septic shock.

A private funeral was held for O’Rourke on February 5, 1988 in Los Angeles. She was entombed at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.

In early 1987, O’Rourke became ill with giardiasis, which she contracted from well water at her family’s home in Big Bear Lake. She was subsequently diagnosed as having Crohn’s disease. She was prescribed cortisone injections to treat the disease during the time she was filming Poltergeist III. The steroidal injections resulted in facial swelling of the cheeks, which O’Rourke’s mother said she was very self-conscious about.

In a contemporary interview with American Premiere magazine, producer Steven Spielberg explained that he was looking for a “beatific four-year-old child…every mother’s dream” for the lead in his horror film Poltergeist (1982). While eating in the MGM commissary, Spielberg saw five-year-old O’Rourke having lunch with her mother while older sister Tammy was shooting Pennies from Heaven. After his lunch, Spielberg approached the family and offered O’Rourke the Poltergeist role; she was signed the next day, beating Drew Barrymore, who was also up for the role.

After her work in Poltergeist (1982), O’Rourke secured several television and TV movie roles. In April 1983, she starred as herself alongside Morey Amsterdam and well-known Walt Disney animated characters in the hour-long television special, Believe You Can…and You Can! She also appeared in CHiPs, Webster, The New Leave It to Beaver, Our House, and had a recurring role on Happy Days as Heather Pfister. She also appeared in the television movies Massarati and the Brain and Surviving: A Family in Crisis.

Heather Michele O’Rourke (December 27, 1975 – February 1, 1988) was an American child actress. She made her debut after being discovered by director Steven Spielberg while visiting MGM studios. Spielberg promptly cast her in the horror film Poltergeist (1982) as Carol Anne Freeling, and O’Rourke earned recognition for her performance. She then reprised the role in the second and third installments. O’Rourke was also recognized for her work in television, and appeared in recurring roles on Happy Days from 1982 to 1983, on Webster in 1983, as well as appearing in the television-film Surviving in 1985.

Heather Michele O’Rourke grew up on December 27, 1975, in San Diego, California, to Kathleen and Michael O’Rourke. Her mother worked as a seamstress and her father was a carpenter. She had an older sister, Tammy O’Rourke, also an actress. Her parents Separation from spoused in 1981, and O’Rourke’s mother married part-time truck driver Jim Peele in 1984, while they were living in a trailer park in Anaheim, California.