Tracey Gold

Tracey Gold (born May 16, 1969) is an American actress and former child star best known for playing Carol Seaver on the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains. In early 2009, she co-hosted with Fred Roggin on the live show GSN Live.

Early life

Gold was born Tracey Claire Fisher in New York City. Her younger sister is fellow actress Missy Gold, who appeared on the TV series Benson from 1979 to 1986; their mother, Bonnie Fisher, was an advertising executive.^[1]

The name "Gold" is a shortened form of the name acquired by Tracey and Missy when they were adopted by Harry Goldstein, who married her mother when Tracey was a preschooler; an actor in his own right (he had supporting roles in Carrie and on The Secrets of Isis), he later became a Hollywood agent. Missy and Tracey have three younger sisters, Brandy, Jessica (Jessie), and Cassandra (Cassie) Gold. Both Brandy and Jessie are actresses. ^{[citation needed]}

Acting career

Gold has been an actress since the age of four, first appearing in a Pepsi print ad. She appeared in two canceled series, Shirley with Shirley Jones in 1979, and Goodnight Beantown, starring Bill Bixby in 1983. Gold was originally cast as the youngest daughter in the original pilot series of the show Gimme A Break! starring Nell Carter, but was replaced by actress Lara Jill Miller when the show went to series. She played one of Albert Finney and Diane Keaton's four daughters in the 1982 feature film Shoot the Moon. Gold also guest starred on her sister Missy's series Benson in 1985, playing the cousin of Missy's character, Katie Gatling.

In 1985, Gold auditioned for the role of Carol Seaver on Growing Pains, but was not initially cast. The actress chosen for the pilot was Elizabeth Ward, who had starred alongside Gold in The Hand-Me-Down Kid, a 1983 ABC Afterschool Special. However, test audiences did not favor Ward in the role of Carol, and she was promptly replaced by Gold. Growing Pains ran from 1985 until 1992. During this time, Gold became a famous teen star and battled anorexia. In 1988, Gold also starred as Angela Strull in the teen film Dance 'til Dawn.

After the end of the long-running series, Gold continued to work as an actress. Over the next decade, Gold starred in several television movies.

Personal life and post-Growing Pains

Cover of Gold's 2003 book

Gold met her husband Roby Marshall through Growing Pains costar Joanna Kerns, who portrayed Marshall's mother in the TV miniseries adaption of the true crime book Blind Faith by Joe McGinniss. Roby had served as a consultant on the miniseries, which dramatized the 1984 case in which his father, Toms River, New Jersey businessman Robert O. Marshall, was charged with (and later convicted of) the contract killing of his wife (and Roby's mother) Maria.^[2]

Gold and Marshall married on October 8, 1994, and have four sons: Sage Gold (b. February 16, 1997), Bailey Vincent (b. March 4, 1999), Aiden Michael (b. May 9, 2004), and Dylan Christopher (b. April 1, 2008).^[3]

In 2003, Gold wrote the book Room to Grow: An Appetite for Life with Julie McCarron.

Arrest

In 2004, Gold was arrested for drunk driving after rolling her SUV—carrying her husband and three young boys—down a California freeway embankment.^[4]

Gold was arrested by California Highway Patrol officers and charged with a felony count of driving under the influence causing injury. According to a CHP spokesman, Gold was driving a 2001 GMC Yukon on Route 118 on September 3 when she lost control of the vehicle. While Gold's husband and two of her sons (ages five and five months) were not seriously injured in the late-night crash, the actress's oldest child, 7-year-old Sage, suffered a broken clavicle and a head laceration. After CHP officers administered sobriety tests, Gold was arrested on the DUI charge, said CHP spokesman Steve Reid. Booked under her married name, Tracey Gold Marshall, she spent five hours in the Ventura lockup before being released on $50,000 bail.^[5]

Present day

In 2003, Gold appeared in an episode of the TV show The Dead Zone as the character Penny Barton.^[6] Gold was a contestant on the program Celebrity Mole 2: Yucatán in 2004, and starred in the movie Safe Harbor in 2006. She is currently hosting the TV Guide Channel mini-show Trapped in TV Guide. In addition, she is the host of the TLC series The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom, which debuted on March 3, 2008.^[7] Recently, Gold appeared as the spokesperson in "Baby Sleeps Safe", a national television infomercial for Baby Guardian.^[8] On January 2, 2012, she appeared on the ABC network's reality series, Celebrity Wife Swap, trading places with singer Carnie Wilson for a week. On July 24, 2013, Gold returned to sitcoms with an appearance on the Melissa & Joey episode, "Something Happened," as one half of a lesbian couple with a home-schooled daughter.^[9]

Filmography

References

External links

• Tracey Gold at the Internet Movie Database