Michelle Trachtenberg Dead: Nickelodeon and ‘Buffy,’ ‘Gossip Girl’ Star Was 39
Michelle Trachtenberg, the iconic ’90s Nickelodeon star of the TV series “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” and the movie “Harriet the Spy,” has died at age 39 according to multiple reports. Representatives for Trachtenberg confirmed to IndieWire via email: “It is with great sadness to confirm that Michelle Trachtenberg has passed away. The family requests privacy for their loss. There are no further details at this time.”
Page Six first reported the news that Trachtenberg, who also appeared in the series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and The CW’s original “Gossip Girl,” was found dead New York City. Her death is not being investigated as suspicious, according to the outlet, but no cause of death has yet been shared. Variety and Deadline also reported on the news.
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Trachtenberg had been largely out of the film and TV spotlight since the mid-2010s, other than reprising her role as Georgina Sparks in the Max reboot of “Gossip Girl” that was canceled in 2023 after two seasons. She starred in nearly 30 episodes of the CW series as a calculating Upper East Side socialite. Prior to that, from 2000 to 2003, she had a leading role on The WB’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” as Dawn Summers, who entered the show at the start of its fifth season.
Trachtenberg, though, was beloved by many for her child acting turn in “Harriet the Spy” as a sixth-grade student and aspiring sleuth opposite Rosie O’Donnell as her nanny. Trachtenberg also starred in the family film “Inspector Gadget” and the raunchy teen sex comedy “EuroTrip” before getting her most mature film role to date in 2004 in Gregg Araki’s cult-classic portrait of child sex abuse, “Mysterious Skin.” She played the best friend of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, a queer small-town teenager who moves to New York to become a hustler.
Trachtenberg also had a recurring role in Season 4 of “Six Feet Under” as the pampered pop star to whom fallen cop turned security detail Keith Charles (Mathew St. Patrick) is personally assigned. She also had roles on TV’s “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Love Bites,” “Weeds,” and “Criminal Minds,” and hosted the documentary web series “Meet, Marry, Murder,” an anthology of true-crime chronicles. She was nominated for multiple Teen Choice Awards throughout her career before largely stepping back from Hollywood, other than the “Gossip Girl” reboot, in recent years.
[Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story noted that Trachtenberg was found Dead in Los Angeles, not in New York City. It has been corrected and we regret the error.]
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