Michelle Trachtenberg biography
Date of birth : 1985-11-11
Date of death : -
Birthplace : New York City,U.S.
Nationality : American
Category : Arts and Entertainment
Last modified : 2011-10-06
Credited as : Actress, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gossip Girl
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Trachtenberg was born in New York City, the younger of two daughters of Lana, a bank manager, and Michael Trachtenberg, a fiber-optics engineer. Her father is from Germany and her mother was born in Russia; Trachtenberg can speak Russian fluently. Her family is Jewish and Trachtenberg celebrates both Christmas and Hanukkah; her grandparents live in Israel. Trachtenberg was raised, along with older sister Irene, in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, where she attended P.S. 99 Elementary School and The Bay Academy for the Arts and Sciences. She later attended Notre Dame High School with Katharine McPhee, Rachel Bilson, and Kirsten Dunst.
At the age of three, Trachtenberg made her first appearance on television on a commercial for Wisk Detergent. Her first credited role was on the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete as Nona F. Mecklenberg. She was also in All My Children around this time playing Lily Montgomery. Trachtenberg met Sarah Michelle Gellar on the set of All My Children.
In 1996, Trachtenberg was cast to star in the movie Harriet the Spy, playing a child spy. She starred with Rosie O'Donnell who played her nanny.
In 2000 Trachtenberg was cast in the vampire series Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Buffy's sister Dawn Sommers. She kept the role until the series ended in 2003.
In 2006 Trachtenberg starred in the Disney movie Ice Princes.
In April 2006 Trachtenberg guest-starred in the episode of House, M.D., "Safe". She revealed on the December 22, 2006, episode of Late Night With Conan O'Brien that House is her favorite show, she is friends with one of the producers and she asked to be a guest star.
In November 2006, Trachtenberg guest-starred in the sixth season of the Emmy-nominated crime drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In the episode "Weeping Willow", she played the role of Willow, a kidnapped video blogger based on lonelygirl15. Trachtenberg also made a cameo in the Fall Out Boy music video for "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" (with fellow Buffy cast member Seth Green), Joaquin Phoenix-directed video "Tired of Being Sorry" for Balthazar Getty's band Ringside, and Trapt's video Echo.
In December 2006, Trachtenberg starred in Black Christmas, the remake of the 1974 slasher of the same name. In 2007, she was cast as the female lead in an ABC comedy pilot called The Hill, set in Washington, D.C. Trachtenberg provided the voice of Tika Waylan for Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, a direct-to-video animated movie based on the novel of the same name.
Trachtenberg appeared on The CW hit show Gossip Girl as Georgina Sparks, who recently left rehab and brings back the dark past Serena van der Woodsen desperately wants to leave behind. She returned to the show for a multi-episode story arc towards the end of the second season. Trachtenberg appeared in the season 3 finale and the season 4 premiere. In 2009, Trachtenberg was a cast member on the NBC drama Mercy, the series however was not renewed for a second season.
On June 9, 2011, Trachtenberg guest-starred on Love Bites as Jodie, who, after being unceremoniously dumped, decides - with a vengeance - to accept her ex's offer to 'be friends'. She reprised the role on June 16, 2011, where Jodie augments her friend Annie's bust with so-called chicken cutlets - which later embarrassingly slip out. She finally reprised the role on July 21, 2011, in the series finale, where Jodie and her on-again boyfriend are tormented - to the point of homelessness - by bedbugs.
On June 28, 2011, it was announced Trachtenberg would guest star on Weeds during its seventh season. Her character Emma is a rival pot dealer who causes problems for Silas Botwin.
In March 2011, she was the featured cover girl in Maxim.
