Michelle Trachtenberg, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Harriet the Spy'
star, dies at 39
 [February 27, 2025]
NEW YORK (AP) — Michelle Trachtenberg, a former child star who
appeared in the 1996 “Harriet the Spy” hit movie and went on to co-star
in two buzzy millennial-era TV shows — “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and
“Gossip Girl” — has died. She was 39.
Police responded to a 911 call shortly after 8 a.m. at a 51-story luxury
apartment tower in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood where
officers found Trachtenberg "unconscious and unresponsive,” according to
an NYPD statement.
Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. No foul play was suspected
and the New York Medical Examiner is investigating the cause of death,
police said.
“The family requests privacy for their loss," Trachtenberg's
representative, Gary Mantoosh, said in a statement Wednesday.
Trachtenberg was 8 when she began playing Nona Mecklenberg on
Nickelodeon’s “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” from 1994 to 1996 and then
starred in the title role in the film adaptations of “Harriet the Spy”
and “Inspector Gadget,” opposite Matthew Broderick.
“Michelle comes off as genuine because she really is a genuine kid.
Everyone can identify with her,” said Debby Beece, president of
Nickelodeon Movies in 1996.
In 2000 Trachtenberg joined the cast of “Buffy,” playing Dawn Summers,
the younger sister of the title character played by Sarah Michelle
Gellar between 2000 and 2003.
Trachtenberg thanked Gellar for speaking out against Joss Whedon in
2021, following abuse allegations made against the “Buffy” showrunner.
“I am brave enough now as a 35-year-old woman to repost this,” she wrote
on social media, and alluded to “his not appropriate behavior” she
experienced as a teenage actor.
In 2001, she received a Daytime Emmy nomination for hosting Discovery’s
“Truth or Scare.” Trachtenberg went on to recurring roles on “Six Feet
Under,” “Weeds” and “Gossip Girl,” where she played the gang’s scheming
nemesis, Georgina Sparks.
For her fan-favorite role, she was nominated as a TV villain at the Teen
Choice Award in 2012. “It’s definitely a lot more fun than playing the
good girl," she told Seventeen in 2009. I love the reaction you get. I
never understood why some actors don’t want to play villains or evil
characters.”
She was one of the original series' stars to return for a pair of guest
appearances in the 2021 “Gossip Girl” revival.
Blake Lively on Instagram on Tuesday honored her “Gossip Girl” co-star:
"The world lost a deeply sensitive and good person in Michelle. May her
work and her huge heart be remembered by those who were lucky enough to
experience her fire.”
[to top of second column]
|
Actress Michelle Trachtenberg poses for a portrait during the
Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 19, 2009. (AP
Photo/Mark Mainz, File)
 As if to cement herself in
millennial culture, Trachtenberg made a cameo in Fall Out Boy’s
music video for the “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race”
alongside Seth Green.
Hollywood took to social media to mourn one of their own, one who
had made the transition from kid star to teen queen to adult actor.
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” co-star David Boreanaz said on Instagram
it was “so very sad.. horrible news.” Melissa Gilbert, who starred
with Trachtenberg in the 1996 film “A Holiday for Love,” wrote on
Instagram: “My heart aches for your family and all those who loved
you so.”
Rosie O’Donnell, who starred alongside Trachtenberg in her “Harriet
the Spy" debut, said her death was “heartbreaking:” “I loved her
very much. She struggled the last few years. I wish I could have
helped.” Glee star Chris Colfer remembered her this way: “Michelle
was the absolute sweetest and one of the most supportive people I
knew,” he wrote.
Trachtenberg's later credits included “Ice Princess” in 2005,
playing a math prodigy and aspiring figure skater. The AP said it
had “a good, though feeble, heart and the best of intentions” and
said Trachtenberg was “mining the same nervous twitter from her
kid-sister days on 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'”
The New York City-born Trachtenberg also appeared in the 2004 teen
sex comedy “EuroTrip,” she co-starred with Zac Efron and Leslie Mann
in 2009's “17 Again” and played a murderous stalker and abductor on
an episode of “Criminal Minds.”
For “Killing Kennedy,” the 2013 film in which she played the wife of
Lee Harvey Oswald, around 80% of Trachtenberg’s dialogue was in
Russian. She had learned the language from her mother growing up.
Other credits included supporting roles in the films “Mysterious
Skin” in 2004 and “Black Christmas” in 2006. She also starred on the
NBC medical series "Mercy" (2009–2010) opposite Taylor Schilling.
More recently, she hosted the true-crime docuseries “Meet, Marry,
Murder” on Tubi.
___
Associated Press Writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
