In her early memories of Trachtenberg, Wilson was awed by someone she saw as a “Cool Older Girl” but even more impressed that she was kind to younger kids like herself. “Not only was she nice, I realized, but she was remarkably intelligent. Yet she managed not to be condescending and didn’t try to impress with big words, the way other kids (including me) might have. She was smart, but she was also self-possessed, and didn’t need to show off,” Wilson writes. She remembers Trachtenberg as a “wildly underrated” actor and a good friend, someone she continued to look up to even after they grew apart.
Wilson’s essay includes quotes from their child star peers, including Trachtenberg’s Harriet The Spy co-star Vanessa Lee Chester, her The Adventures Of Pete & Pete co-star Danny Tamberelli, and Zane Carney, with whom she shared an “innocent” childhood romance. Carney posted his own tributes to his “first love” on Instagram, writing, “I loved her brain, her wit, her seemingly unlimited energy, her effortless beauty, her loyalty and how every room she entered became precisely *infinity percent* more fun, just because she was in it.” In a follow-up post, he wrote in part, “It’s hard to explain, but there’s something about the “child acting days” that seems unreal to a lot of us former young performers. It’s as if we’ve been told the story of our past, but didn’t in fact live it. … Long story short: it turns out everything I’ve remembered was real, including the deep connection Michelle and I had. And for today, I’m choosing to cherish that instead of getting overwhelmed by the sadness of her loss.”
In her essay, Wilson writes that Trachtenberg’s death inspired her to get back in touch with their old child actor friend group: “I needed them to know that I loved them and missed them,” she says. Michelle Trachtenberg’s death “wasn’t supposed to happen. She was too young. She’d worked too hard. I always thought I would get the chance to see her again, to tell her how much I’d always looked up to her. To tell her the times we spent together as children were some of the best of my life.” You can read Wilson’s full essay here.
