Daveigh Chase, the voice of Disney’s Lilo, wasn’t in the Emmys In Memoriam

The 78th Emmys remembered Catherine O’Hara, Dolly Parton, Hayden Panettiere and more than a dozen others Monday night. The actress who voiced Lilo across a film, three sequels and 67 episodes of television was not among them.

Daveigh Chase died on June 16 in Los Angeles. She was 35.

On Monday night, the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards ran its In Memoriam segment at the Peacock Theater, with Noah Kahan performing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” over a photo montage.

Chase’s name does not appear in any published account of that segment.

Who was Daveigh Chase?

The voice of Lilo Pelekai.

She was 11 when Disney cast her in Lilo & Stitch, the 2002 film about an orphaned Hawaiian girl who adopts what she believes is a dog. The movie grossed more than $274 million worldwide, and Chase won an Annie Award for the performance.

She stayed with the character. Stitch! The Movie in 2003. Leroy & Stitch in 2006. And all 67 episodes of Disney Channel‘s Lilo & Stitch: The Series, which ran from 2003 to 2006.

Outside Disney, she played Samara Morgan in The Ring, which won her an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain the same year she played Lilo. She voiced Chihiro in the English dub of Studio Ghibli‘s Spirited Away. She was Samantha Darko in Donnie Darko.

Then she spent five years and 32 episodes on HBO‘s Big Love as Rhonda Volmer, between 2006 and 2011.

She had not worked on screen since 2015. At the time of her death she was living homeless in Los Angeles, according to what her father told the New York Times.

Who was in the Emmys In Memoriam?

Four people received individual tributes, and more than a dozen appeared in the montage.

Dolly Parton was honored first, ahead of the segment, with Sally Field introducing and Reba McEntire performing “Appalachian Memories.” Parton died Aug. 25 at 80.

Catherine O’Hara was remembered by Macaulay Culkin, Dan Levy and Annie Murphy, her on-screen children from Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek. Culkin told the audience to call their mothers.

Jamie Lee Curtis paid tribute to Rob Reiner, who died in December alongside his wife Michele Singer Reiner, and to James Burrows.

The montage included Tim Curry, Sam Neill, Hayden Panettiere, Eric Dane, James Van Der Beek, Robert Carradine, Isiah Whitlock Jr., June Lockhart, Anthony Head, Sid Krofft, Ted Turner and Bob Mackie, who died the day before the ceremony.

The Disney names who made it in

Several, and the connections run deep.

Hayden Panettiere voiced Dot in Pixar‘s A Bug’s Life and starred in Disney’s Remember the Titans and Ice Princess. Eric Dane spent years as Mark Sloan on ABC‘s Grey’s Anatomy. Robert Carradine played Lizzie’s dad on Disney Channel‘s Lizzie McGuire. Tim Curry was Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island. Catherine O’Hara voiced both Sally and Shock in The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Which makes the gap harder to explain, not easier.

Why do names get left out?

Every year, and the complaint is annual.

Viewers flagged other absences on social media after the broadcast, including Nicholas Brendon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Chuck Norris. The Television Academy has never published its selection criteria for the segment.

A reasonable guess in Chase’s case is that she had been out of the industry for a decade and that the reporting around her death focused on her final years rather than her work. Neither is a good reason. She carried a Disney Channel series for 67 episodes and a prestige HBO drama for 32 more.

No list can hold everyone. That is true, and it is also the answer given every single year.

The voice that said “ohana means family” belonged to somebody. She should have been on the screen Monday night.

Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.

Pirates and Princesses is your destination for Disney news, theme park updates, and the pop culture you love. From Disney cruises and travel tips to Disney fashion, food, collectibles, and movie news, PNP covers it all. Visit us at piratesandprincesses.net for daily coverage. Follow PNP on Facebook and Instagram, and listen to the Pirates & Princesses podcast on Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Hat Tips:

• Rolling Stone (Sept. 15, 2026), the In Memoriam name list

• Deadline (June 18, 2026) and Variety (June 2026), Chase’s death, her career and her Annie Award

• The New York Times, via the Philadelphia Inquirer (June 19, 2026), her father’s account and her Big Love run

• Fox News (Sept. 15, 2026), the Dolly Parton tribute

• WION (Sept. 15, 2026), the noted absences

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