Michelle Trachtenberg, known for starring in the TV shows Gossip Girl and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has died at age 39.
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According to The New York Post, Trachtenberg’s mother found the Harriet the Spy actress “unconscious and unresponsive” in her Manhattan apartment at about 8 a.m. Wednesday (Feb. 26.) She was pronounced dead by EMS workers, NYPD confirmed.
Reportedly, Trachtenberg recently underwent a liver transplant and died of natural causes.
Watch This Throwback Michelle Trachtenberg Performance
After beginning her acting career at age 3, Michelle Trachtenberg’s breakout came in the 1996 film Harriet the Spy. Then 10, Trachtenberg gained praised for her role as the titular child spy.
However, her acting career occasionally veered into more musical territory. One example came in 2005, when she took the stage with actor Jesse Bradford to deliver an… interesting country music parody at the 20th annual Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California.
Introduced by host Samuel L. Jackson, Trachtenberg took the stage in a white top and black skirt. Bradford sang backup vocals and strummed his guitar as the Buffy star took the lead on a “Yellow Rose of Texas” parody.
In a storage space in Texas, there sits a strange machine, Trachtenberg sings. What’s happened since we built it could not have been foreseen.
Honestly, the song’s message never quite crystallizes. But there are several more references to a storage space in Texas.
Conquering Her Fears
Hearing Michelle Trachtenberg belt out a country parody at the Independent Spirit Awards is all the more impressive once you learn the actress was terrified of singing publicly.
Trachtenberg played Dawn Summers, younger sister of the title character, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the groundbreaking series’ most memorable moments came in season 6 with the musical episode “Once More, With Feeling.
Initially, she begged showrunner Joss Whedon not to make her sing on camera. “I gave myself psychosomatic tonsillitis when I heard I had to sing,” she said. “I was so petrified, I was like, [in raspy voice] ‘Hello? It’s me, I don’t have to sing.’”
Eventually, through perseverance, encouragement, and “lots of tea and lemon,” Trachtenberg worked up the courage to sing. But she wasn’t entirely happy about it. “I think I’m the only one who’s not on the DVD of the singing because my face was so puffy from crying,” Trachtenberg said.
