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Michelle Trachtenberg Biography

Michelle Christine Trachtenberg (born October 11, 1985) is an American television and film actress who is perhaps best known for her roles as Dawn Summers from the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nona F. Mecklenberg in The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and Jenny in Eurotrip.

Early life: Trachtenberg was born in New York City. Her father, Michael Trachtenberg, is a fiberoptics engineer, and her Russian-born mother, Lana, is a former actress turned puppeteer. Trachtenberg can speak Russian fluently. She is of Jewish heritage and celebrates both Christmas and Hanukkah; her grandparents live in Israel.Trachtenberg was raised, along with older sister Irene, in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn and attended Bay Academy Junior High School. She has a half-brother, Dan who hosts the internet video blog, Totally Rad Show

Career: Trachtenberg had her first television appearance in 1988 in a commercial for Wisk Detergent. She went on to feature in over 100 more commercials. Her first credited role came in 1993. She played Nona F. Mecklenberg in The Adventures of Pete & Pete from 1994 until 1996. During the same period she played Lily Montgomery in All My Children. It was on All My Children that Trachtenberg first worked with future Buffy co-star, Sarah Michelle Gellar.

A New York based child actor who had her juiciest chance as the title role in the 1996 feature film "Harriet the Spy", Michelle Trachtenberg moved into primetime series in the fall of 1997 playing one of three children who choose the extraterrestrial Bronson Pinchot to be their nanny on "Meego" (CBS). Trachtenberg has been acting since the age of four, when she broke into the business the way so many other kid actors have--through TV commercials. By the time she was eight, Trachtenberg was appearing regularly on the Nickelodeon series "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" and also did two years in the recurring role of the autistic Lily Montgomery on the daytime drama "All My Children" (ABC).

She made her TV-movie debut in "Christmas in My Hometown" (CBS, 1996) and has also guest starred on "Law & Order" (NBC). But it was as the fearless investigator being nurtured by Rosie O'Donnell in "Harriet the Spy"—Nickelodeon's first feature film—that Trachtenberg joined the ranks of viable kid star performers. Her profile was raised higher in 2000, when she joined the cast of the popular cult series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in its last season on The WB (2000-01). playing the title character's hitherto unknown sister Dawn. 

When the series jumped network to UPN in the fall of 2001, Trachtenberg was along, continuing to assist her older sibling in the fight against supernatural creatures. In 1999, she appeared as Penny in “Inspector Gadget”, the live-action rendition of the popular cartoon. After traipsing the Old World in the long forgotten teen sex comedy “Eurotrip”, she starred in “Ice Princess” (2005) as a high school student who puts her Harvard ambitions on hold to pursue dreams of becoming a champion ice skater. 

Trachtenberg's film career began in 1996 with the lead role in Harriet the Spy. She then returned to television for Meego, for which she won a Young Artist Award. She returned to film in 1999 for Inspector Gadget, as the gadget-master's niece, Penny. She also starred in the film Can't Be Heaven.

In the summer of 2000, Trachtenberg took up the role of Dawn Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She remained in the role until the show ended in 2003. After Buffy, she returned to film in EuroTrip, co-starring Scott Mechlowicz and Travis Wester and directed by Jeff Schaffer. She also had a recurring role in the HBO series Six Feet Under as Celeste, a spoiled pop star for whom Keith Charles serves as a bodyguard.

A recent role in a feature film was in March 2005, where she played the title character in Walt Disney Pictures' family comedy/drama Ice Princess with Kim Cattrall. In this film, Trachtenberg plays a science whiz named Casey Carlyle who gives up her future academic life in order to chase her lifelong dream of being a professional figure skater.

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". She was recently cast as the female lead in an untitled ABC comedy pilot set in Washington, DC.

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