Buffy The Vampire Slayer & Nickelodeon Star Michelle Trachtenberg Dead At 39

According to ABC News — among other outlets — actress Michelle Trachtenberg passed away at the age of 39. 

New York City police officers told ABC News that on the morning of Wednesday, February 29, Trachtenberg was found dead in her apartment in Manhattan's Columbus Circle neighborhood by her mother, and the cause of death remains unknown. However, sources also told the outlet that Trachtenberg "recently underwent a liver transplant and may have been experiencing complications," and officials have not ruled her death as suspicious. An autopsy will be performed.

A daughter of Jewish immigrants, Trachtenberg was born and raised in New York City before getting her start in commercials and — as so many New York-based actors do — on "Law & Order."

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Even though Michelle Trachtenberg earned some notoriety among young Nickelodeon audiences for her role as Nona F. Mecklenberg on its original series "The Adventures of Pete & Pete," after she booked a lead role in a huge kid's film, she left that series in 1996 to focus on her titular role in "Harriet the Spy." In the beloved film based on the book of the same name by Louise Fitzhugh (which, for many millennials, is one of their most fondly remembered reads), Trachtenberg plays Harriet M. Welsch, a clever young girl who lives in a bustling New York City apartment building with her parents Violetta and Ben (J. Smith Cameron and Robert Joy) and her nanny Catherine (Rosie O'Donnell), whom Harriet calls "Golly." Harriet, an aspiring spy, writes down everything she sees and observes in a composition notebook that she keeps fiercely private, but one day at school, someone else gets ahold of her notes; in the process, she hurts everyone's feelings and has to learn how to grapple with the consequences of her actions.

Trachtenberg is extraordinary in "Harriet the Spy" — which, for a Nickelodeon movie, has some surprising emotional twists and turns — and she followed that project up with the lead role of Penny Brown in the live-action "Inspector Gadget" film. From 2000 to 2003, Trachtenberg played the pivotal supporting role of Dawn Summers on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" alongside star Sarah Michelle Gellar, and in 2004, she started moving into more mature fare with "EuroTrip," and Gregg Araki's coming-of-age film "Mysterious Skin," returning to her family-friendly roots in the 2005 cult classic "Ice Princess."

In 2008, Michelle Trachtenberg took the role that helped shape her adult career — despite the fact that it was a role in a primetime teen soap. Trachtenberg made her debut on the hit series "Gossip Girl" during its first season as Georgina Sparks, a delightfully cruel and chaotic "teenager" who torments Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) with revelations about her racy past and tricks Serena's boyfriend Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) into being unfaithful with her; though it certainly seems like queen bee Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) drives Georgina out of town during the Season 1 finale, showrunners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage clearly understood that Trachtenberg was an indispensable addition to the show. Georgina went on to appear in every single season finale of the show and even reprised her role in the (much less successful) HBO reboot from 2022 to 2023.

Trachtenberg will be missed by her friends, family, colleagues, and the industry as a whole. Frankly, the actress was so talented form the very start of her career that she performed multiple iconic roles and created projects that will live on forever, which isn't something that every performer can say. If you want to stream some of her work, you can find "Harriet the Spy" for free on Pluto TV (and for rent on major platforms), "Gossip Girl" on Max, and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on Hulu.