The cause of death for Michelle Trachtenberg, the “Gossip Girl” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” star, will remain undetermined as her family declined an autopsy, Variety has confirmed.
Families can decline autopsies when there is so evidence of foul play or for religious reasons. According to the NYPD, 39-year-old Trachtenberg was found “unconscious and unresponsive” at her New York City apartment on Wednesday morning. The EMS then arrived and pronounced her deceased. Criminality was not suspected and, as such, her cause of death will remain unknown.
Trachtenberg began acting at a young age, getting her start in commercials at three years old before landing her first TV role on the Nickelodeon series “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” in the mid-’90s. At age 10, she scored her first major film role with 1996’s “Harriet the Spy,” in which she played the title character. In the early 2000s, she played Dawn Summers on the teen drama “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” which she joined in its fifth season and remained part of until its end in 2003.
She also became well-known for her role on another teen drama, “Gossip Girl,” as the villainous Georgina Sparks. Her character recurred throughout the show’s run from 2007 to 2012, and reappeared on the short-lived 2022 reboot for two episodes. Her other film credits include 2004’s “Eurotrip,” 2005’s “Ice Princess” and 2009’s “17 Again” alongside Zac Efron.
Several of Trachtenberg’s co-stars, including “Buffy” star Sarah Michelle Gellar, paid tribute to her on social media.
“Michelle, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will always love you,” Gellar wrote on Instagram accompanied by a photo gallery of the two actors together in “Buffy.” “The hardest thing in this world, is to live in it. I will be brave. I will live… for you”
“Trachtenberg’s untimely death, at 39, marks a passage for millennials — she was one of the signature young stars with whom this generation grew up,” wrote Variety‘s chief correspondent Daniel D’Addario. “On the cult-favorite Nickelodeon show ‘The Adventure of Pete & Pete,’ she provided deadpan ballast to the show’s surrealist trappings. She allowed a way into the proceedings on ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ for young viewers, playing Buffy’s little sister Dawn, one of the show’s emotional fulcrums. Later, on ‘Gossip Girl,’ Trachtenberg’s Georgina Sparks was a gleeful agent of chaos — taking the fast-ticking mind and the acuity with a sharp insult that the actress had exhibited in “Harriet the Spy” and flipping it on its head.”
From Variety US