Michelle Trachtenberg 

Michelle Christine Trachtenberg is a young actress making the transition from child star on Nickelodeon to more mature roles. She is perhaps best known for playing Dawn Summers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Trachtenberg was born on October 11, 1985 in New York City . Her father Michael was a fiberoptics engineer and her mother, Lana, was a Russian actress turned puppeteer. Trachtenberg and her older sister Irene are of Russian and German descent and speak Russian fluently. They grew up in a Jewish household in Brooklyn, New York . 

Trachtenberg got her start by acting in commercials, her first one being for Wisk Detergent in 1988. She has shot over 100 commercials to date. Her first break into TV shows was when she landed the part of Nona F. Mecklenberg in The Adventures of Pete & Pete on Nickelodeon from 1994 to 1996. She then made it onto the soap opera, All my Children, where she played Lily Montgomery. It was while working on All My Children that Trachtenberg met her future co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar, who also worked on the show. 

Harriet the Spy (1996) was Trachtenberg’s first feature film co-starring Rosie O’Donnell and was produced by Nickelodeon Studios. Her next film was Inspector Gadget (1999) where she played Penny. Her co-stars included Matthew Broderick and Rupert Everett.