Actress Michelle Trachtenberg, popular for her roles in buzzy millennial-era TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl, has died at the age of 39, New York City police confirmed to CBC News on Wednesday.
Police said that Trachtenberg was found shortly after 8 a.m. Wednesday at 1 Columbus Place, a New York luxury residential complex on Central Park South.
Her death is not being investigated as suspicious and the investigation is ongoing, police said.
Officers had responded to a 911 call and found the Buffy actress “unconscious and unresponsive,” according to the NYPD statement.
Trachtenberg rose to fame at just 10, as the plucky titular snoop in the 1996 film Harriet the Spy.
The actress recently underwent a liver transplant, The New York Post said on Wednesday, citing sources.
She had posted a bunch of photos in recent months sparking concern among fans who had questioned her health due to a drastic change in appearance.
At the time, the actress had responded to fans saying, “Explain to me how I look sick. Did you lose a calendar and not realize I’m not 14. I’m 38. How sad for you to leave such a comment.”
Later in a post on Instagram she said, “I’ve received several comments recently about my appearance. I have never had plastic surgery. I am happy and healthy. Check yourself haters.”
Trachtenberg was 8 when she began played Nona Mecklenberg on Nickelodeon’s The Adventures of Pete & Pete Nona from 1994 to 1996 and then starred 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 behaviour” 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.
Her other credits included Ice Princess in 2005 — playing a math prodigy and aspiring figure skater — and the 2004 teen sex comedy EuroTrip.
For Killing Kennedy, the 2013 film in which she played the wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, around 80 per cent of Trachtenberg’s dialogue was in Russian. She had learned the language from her mother growing up.
