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NEW YORK — Michelle Trachtenberg, a former child star who appeared in the 1996 “Harriet the Spy” hit movie and went on to costar in two buzzy millennial-era TV shows — “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Gossip Girl” — has died. She was 39.
Police responded to a 911 call shortly after 8 a.m. at a 51-story luxury apartment tower in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood where officers found Trachtenberg “unconscious and unresponsive,” according to an NYPD statement.
Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. No foul play was suspected and the New York Medical Examiner is investigating the cause of death, police said.
“The family requests privacy for their loss,” Trachtenberg’s representative, Gary Mantoosh, said in a statement Wednesday. Trachtenberg was 8 when she began playing Nona Mecklenberg on Nickelodeon’s “The Adventures of Pete & Pete” from 1994 to 1996 and then starred in the title role in the film adaptations of “Harriet the Spy” and “Inspector Gadget.”
— The Associated Press