Like Shannen, Tracey Gold grew up a child star. But her 'Growing Pains' left some scars.An almost fatal battle with anorexia, being bullied on set, and dealing with rejection from an early agetook a toll on Tracey. Today, she shares her connection with Shannen, her road to recovery, and the realities they faced as young women in Hollywood.
This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doorney. Hi, my name is Tracy Gold. I'm so privileged to be here on Let's Be Clear Shannon's podcast. And she was so proud of and put so much passion behind. I was really honored to be asked to do this. Shannon and I come from a shared experience of being a child actress. And the interesting thing is Shannon and I. I knew Shannon in a very like, kind of non actory way in in a funny world that we were raised in. And I went to this very Elica small private school and and very tiny, and it was just a junior high school, and I was in night and Shannon came in for seventh grade, and she was like a breath of fresh air for me coming in that finally somebody who understood kind of like my journey and what I was going through and going in and out of school. And we would just walk around the yard and talk at lunch, and I mean we really just connected in such a really great way. She was at both my sixteen and eighteenth birthday parties, and but you know, we've lost kind of you know, our careers went kind of even different directions, so it kind of comes full circle here that I can fill in today maybe give you guys a little glimpse of what it's like to be a child actress. Everybody's always asking me, and I think there's so many misconceptions, and I think our child actor gets such a kind of raw deal, like this deal that like, oh, you're a child actor, that means you're not a success because you were a child actor and were able to continue it until you were older. And I'm always like, I think it's any kind of success that if you reach that many people as a kid, you know, so that should be an applause to all child actors. And you know, I'll start from the beginning for you guys, But you know, I come from New York and I not organically was an actress. My dad was an actor, and I'm coming from a first marriage. And so my mom and my dad, Harry Harry Gold, the very very great reputation Harry Gold, but callid agent. He and my mom came out to California and he came as an actor for his career. And me and my sister Missy were like four and five when we were little kids, like you know, always, my mom was in advertising. They always approached like, ooh, you learned to get them in commercials, and my mom was like no. But then eventually I acoluently kind of fell into it in New York and started to do a commercial. I did, like a Lucky Charms commercial. I did, like a print Dad for PEPSI And we came out to California, and I'll tell you my first job I ever got was Roots the miniseries, and I played Missy and the Sandy Duncan character, and I got to work with Robert Reid and were beautiful outfit. I was like, I couldn't believe it. Not that job I was getting the power of it or the all of that that was behind it. It was just this one of these beautiful dresses. And I was my dad from Heady Bunch was playing my dad. So that was like the start of my kind of career, you know. And I a lot of people know me from growing paints, and I became well known at sixteen for doing growing paints. But my sister and I had been working steadily since we were kids. We would go up on auditions together, we would go up against each other. We would you know, we would go to school it was really important to my parents put us. They put us in a regular school that we had to go to. And when we went into the regular school, and we'd come out with prepped four or five auditions. And I was very good at getting auditions, so I would get a lot of them, and I'll do commercials and lots of TeV stuff in Missy and I I remember kind of cutting to like the highlights. We we auditioned for Benson Together, a series that was on in the seventies with Robert Robert Yoh, and it was to play the governor's daughter, and my sister got it. Missy got it. And you know, the funny thing is I always, you know, a child after most usually have siblings that are you know, have to kind of compete against each other or you know, Missy and I were so close in age that we went up for everything together. Very few we didn't. And but you always, most acting families have multiple child actors in the family, so it's always a balancing act to make it kind of not a competitive thing. And I think that Missy and I were so close and my parents were very very good about that that if one gets a success, it's the other success, and your turn will come and this is their turn. What's meant to be is meant to be and celebrate each other's success and joys. And so that's kind of how we looked at it. You know, we went to a regular elementary school. We would you know, just go on auditions and if we had to leave, we would go and work and then we would come home to My parents made sure me. You know, when we came out here, we were kind of didn't have a lot of money. So we landed in kind of like like some air areas that we were like, you know, or like move quickly. We're from New York, so it's like, okay, move them, like, oh this isn't the right area. Oh this isn't the right area. We finally settled in kind of like the Deep Valley, which kind of to be said, tended to be our place, and it's it's about thirty miles away from like Hollywood auditions and stuff like that, and so you were really kind of set art back then, and so you could have like a life of normalcy but also go in and do the you know, Hollywood stuff. And when Missy got Benston, that really made Missy like a household name at eight years old. So Missy and I are eight and nine and she becomes this you know, household name. And you know, so many people and people are weird, especially the kid actors. I think they think they can ask you anything. And they would come up and be like, oh, are you see stand in. I'm like no. But I wasn't like a like pissed off or like I was just like no. I'm like, I knew my own successes. I was working with Betty Davis and I was working with Jane Wyman. I played Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jean, and so I knew my own success and I was confident in that. But people did like to put us kind of pit us against each other. And I remember for me going to Benson was like Shane or La. It was the most beautiful place. I mean it was the Benson set was so it was with Thomas Harris and the production company and it was just so well put together, the candy, the craft service table. I just I had such a good time there. So with Missy being on Benson, that's a lot of fun for me. You know, when I was eleven, I had a pretty big success in my career, and that was I got a movie called Shoot the Moon and that was with Diane Keaton and Albert Finney. And funny story is I'll tell you. It was the Friday for Christmas and I finished a movie with for Keing Nelson. My mom was very impressed. I was working with Ricky Nelson. I didn't really know who he was, but I finished it like right before Christmas break. And I wasn't really a great student. I didn't really like school that much. Going on a set was sort of like like my reprieve. I loved it. I loved going from the set. I loved the crew who I loved, like I knew. I thrived there and I was good there. But in school, I was like it always being in and out. I'm not gonna lie, it's not easy. In elementary school, it is easier because you have one teacher as only you get a good teacher that helps you. You know, you have to You're obligated as a kid to have three hours of schooling, so you know, you get a set teacher, you get who access or social worker, so that balance is always kind of you know. It's much easier when you're younger, but I was going on an audition, like two auditions. I had the final audition for Shoot to Move, and I was in a terrible car accident and it was the only day of school I ever wanted to go to because it was the Christmas party. And I was like, I want to go to the Christmas party. My mom's like, you could just miss out on it. You've missed so much. Like no, I want to go. So we go and I got into car accident, and you know, I ended up like sixty five stitches in my face. And I remember them saying, you know, to Albert park Allen Parker, the director, renowned Alan Parker, and they said, look at her face is really messed up, and we don't know what she's going to look like when these stitches come out. He's like, are you kidding me? He's like, I want real kids, and real kids get hurt, so I want to see her. And so I went in with my face stillstone with stitches and did the audition on tape for him, and I ended up getting it, and you know, and that was kind of proud because he really didn't want professional children actors. Most of the actor except for the lead girl, Dana Hill, the wonderful, wonderful Dana Hill with the younger girls. He wanted to be really natural. So I was privileged to be a working actress that got in with the group of girls really didn't know a lot. Tina Yethers, who went on to do Family Ties, was one of her first things she had ever done, and she played one of the sisters, and that was an incredible, you know, glorious experience, three months in San Francisco working, you know, doing this kind of really like my first feature film, and it was It's one of those experiences that you know, you can't recreate. I remember when it ended, Diane Keaton gave all these girls these gift baskets of just these personally picked out gifts that were so nice. And I mean I had this dollar Skayden for decades until finally it was stuffed animal. Now it was actually like a kind of doll in like a kind of gold outfit. Was very cool. But that was in a great experience. But in my life at that point, I came home and we had moved houses, and I think, you know, as being a child actor and being my nature kind of a bit of a like I like control, I like stability, and we had moved, and so that became a little bit of a difficult time for me in that part of my life. And I remember it was the first time. I'd always been a really skinny kid, never worried about my weight. I always played the wave. They would say to me, Missy would get her her clothes designed for her, and like Missy was a tomboy. She didn't really like it that much. And we were the same size, so I could wear her clothes and and she and they would tell me the wardrobe department and put like this potato sack on me. It was one part. And they say, okay, go roll around in the dirt. I'm like, okay, I'm like, we're not quite clamorous. But that was sort of the parts I played. I was always the child left behind, chasing after people, you know, I you know, so it was that was my my my niche. And so when I, you know, came back to to California, there was an adjustment because the family had moved without me doing the transition myself. So I started to sort of also realize that I was getting older and hitting puberty, and I think that terrified me because I had been a child actress and little and all of a sudden, I was going to hit another phase in my life, and that is very It was scary. It was scary for me. So I started to kind of go on this health food kick. And it was just one summer, but it was sort of like I call it my bout with anorexia, you know, because I was such a kind of people pleaser that I saw what it was doing to my parents and I it devastated me, and I, you know, I went to one therapy session, you know, I went to my pediatrician and he was like, you know, I think she's having a bout with anorexia. He's a little anorexia, and you know, I kind of knew a little bit like the best little girl in the world, and so with Jennifer Jason Lee. But I quickly wanted to make my parents happy and I didn't want to be the burden in the family, and I wanted I was always a really kind of happy kid, and I was a little sullen that summer. So I really quickly tried to get out of it. And I successfully did, you know, probably not without like dealing with everything that I needed to deal with, but It got me through for many, many years, never really thinking about food, never really thinking about my way, because I went was always not an issue. And I, you know, from then on, I continued to work and do different parts. I was in Gooble of my Children with Aunt Margaret. I did Another Woman's Child with Linda Lavin. I was just working consistently. When I was about fourteen fifteen, you know, I was still working assistantly. The last thing I did before I got Growing Pains was, Oh, it was Lots of Luck with a net Frunicello and I I remember I did that, and I went for Griying Pains, and all the girls in Hollywood were auditioning, you know. I don't know if Shannon did, but we were all. We all auditioned for the same things. We all passed or cross paths and stuff like that at that time, you know. And I had to go up for Growing Pains and I had multiple auditions and I didn't get it, and I was a little bombed. You know. I had already worked with Kirk Cameron because we looked alike, so were Cassa's brother and sister. We had done McDonald's commercial together. Oh, and we had also done Best of Times Together, which was a movie with Kurt Russell and the Dear Robin Williams and and I had a kind of a small part that was cut out even have a credit in it. But I had a lot of time waiting on the set, so I was in it. I was like a part of it, but I was kind of in a holding room most of the time. So like I knew Kirk and so I hadn't I thought, oh, that would be fun, but then I didn't get it, and so I quickly moved on, because that's what you have to do. Like being an actor at any age or being a child actor, There's so many things you don't get. There's so many the things I could tell you that I auditioned for online. There's a there's a Labyrinth audition that I did, and because I got clothes to it, but I think I was wearing like a pink heart puffy sweatshirt, which is really very Labyrinth of me. And I still had a kind of stick New York accent. So I've seen the audition, like other right, Jennifer Connolly, Yeah, you're wing work, so that would have been cool. So I went about my way and we are a family of actors at this point. My dad was an agent. When he became an agent, he didn't want to necessarily be a kid's agent. He wanted to be an adult, you know, adult actors agent. And he eventually opened up an agency, a children's department with a well known children's agent, Ruth Hansen, and she came over and that's Missy and I are kind of early teen years, transitioned into my dad's agency with her there, and so that's when, all of a sudden, you know, I became a part of that. So my dad now is sort of kind of like especially for something like growing pains, sort of getting involved in it, like, you know, because he's the head of his agency. And I go to Chicago because my sister Brandy is who's now an agent, is working in the movie Wildcats and it was with Goldie Hahn. And I went to Chicago when I was having the best time. I just got out of high school. No, I'm not graduated. For the summer. I was fifteen, and we get a call they want to see Tracy again because they're recasting the part of Carol. Sever they'd shopped the pilot. I'd read about it in the magazine or in the newspaper before I went to school, they're recasting the part of Carol sever and me and my infinite wisdom was like, I'm not going back. Are you kidding me? No way, so they could tell me they don't like me again, I don't need that kind of rejection. They've already rejected me. I've auditioned many times and then all they want me back, And I said, I was sort of like not interested and probably naive at that point in my life that work comes this easily. But my dad is like, Tracy, I'm so he had to go back for work. He's like I'm going back. He's like, I implore you had to come back with me, and I'm like, fine, I'll go back. So I went back with him, and I auditioned, auditioned two more times, and the last audition I had back then they didn't have cell phones, so we had to have to stop at seven eleven to see how you know, I had a network, and you know, nobody knows, you know, in the outside world what network is. But you have to go to a studio. Basically you're auditioning for a comedy and you get all like twenty men in suits who I think are trained not to laugh at anything you say, because you don't know how you do when you go in there, and you got to just throw it out there, and it's like, all right, I can't tell. So we went, you know, to the seven eleven to check in with the agency to see if they've heard anything. And I had gotten it, and they had told me I need to get a pair of glasses and head over to a TV Guide photo sheet immediately, and the rest of the cast was already there, and so I went over. I got a pair of like like phony glasses in Hollywood somewhere, went to the photo shoot, and that's the cover you see, that went for the cover of TV Guy. That September was that day I literally auditioned, went to TV Guide photo shoot, met the whole cast, you know, I know, and and like I was in a fish out of water. I was like, I was like what my head was spinning. I had never done a comedy before. I had only done dramas, so I wasn't really my natural state to be broad and kind of over the top and searched for a joke and all those sorts of things. So I remember kirks Mont Barbera had the tape of Growing Pains and a tape well, you know, I put in my VHS and she uh gave it to me. I gave it to my mom and dad or with my mom, and I remember I went home and I watched it. I put it in and all the whites around I kind of watched. It felt felt like I was by myself, and I was like, huh. Opening credits came on and they were kind of like cheers, and I was like, Oh, I could do this. This sexually looks really good. And it was from that moment on I was like, oh my god, this is a really great thing. And you know, Growing Pains was, especially in the first few years, just a great, great fun experience. I mean, Mondays. I couldn't wait for Mondays. It was so fun. Everybody, you know, got along. Everybody was just grateful to be there. Duenna and Allen were both coming out of difficult situations and you know, so they were really they taught all of us as kids that this is something to be extremely grateful about. This is not something that happens all the time. And they were, you know, kind of bonded us all together. And we really all just sort of got along very well. I always say Growing Pains is like lightning in a bottle, because it's like, you know, when you're going through it, especially when you're so young and you have no idea that this is so unique that it's like it's it can almost just like you can be so naive about it. And it really was. When people say what was like to work on Bring Pains, and I'm like, it was it was like me in a bottle. You know, people say, do you guys still hang out? You know, if we see each other, it's like old times. We're not always seeing each other socially, but we could all pick up the phone at anytime and call, in which we have. I think the loss of Alian was a devastating blow for our family, our Growing Pains family. I'm getting ahead of myself, but I can't help but think that when I think about Growing Pains, Growing Pains, especially for those first few years, and every popular actor came in, from Hillary's Strike to Brad Pitt to Christy Swanson. It was a rotating door of just the best of the best of the young Hollywood and you gub A Gooding Jr. We just really had fun. You know, on Guaranty Paints. I noticed, you know, a few years into it, I probably i'd never oh, Matthew Perry, the great Matthew Perry. He played Carol's boyfriend Sandy, and the you know, every we all always had to do episodes of special every every character would get a uh a very special episode that ABC would do, and I had one and mine was a two part with with Matthew Perry, and he was wonderful in it. And I I remember though the first three after three seasons, probably there started to become like like jokes at my behalf. In the beginning, the Carol Sever and Mike sever relationship was very We were always putting each other down. We were always I was calling him stupid, he was calling me brainiact and in truth he was a match better student than I was. And I was probably more like Mike's Sever, not wanting to go to school and doing all that sort of stuff. And so, you know, it was very lighthearted and it really had to do with our characters. But then there became shift where I think the writing became a little edgier, and I think there's always like to push the button to be funnier, and I pushed the button to kind of like, you know, always stay on top of the Unfortunately, I think in that time it became my expense, and it became because they started to have Mike's sever make fat jokes about Carol sever and you know, one or two would go and you know, one thing you have to know about being a child actor. I always say this when I talked to kids, you want to be child actors, I'm like, you have to be the best person on that set. You watch the adults messing up. You watch the adults, you know, laughing forgetting their lines. They are allowed to do that. You, as a child actor, you need to get there. You need to know your lines. You shut your mouth and you do your job. And that's that's really what the ambiance on a set is that way. So when these jokes would come in, I really had no voice, so I would sort of just be like, I don't think I'm allowed to say anything. But I had power a little bit because Carol Siver was all of a sudden, she was mine and I had created her and I was known for her, so all of a sudden I also felt protective of her for a little bit, and I'm like starting, you know, and I'd be like, okay, I can let one go by. And I felt a little bit like at that point, like I didn't feel too sensitive about my weight, so I was like kind of could brush it off. But I I went away one summer on a hiatus, and I came the freshman fifteen basically, and then the jokes accelerated when I came back and became meaner and mean. So there are one joke, there were two jokes. There were three jokes. And I finally tried to find my voice and go to them these you know, men who I've known a long time, but they're twice my age and you know, quite intimidating. And I would say and I, you know, it was out of my character to speak up, but it was hurting me and I was sensitive to it. And I knew I had gained a little bit of weight, and I had never had that problem before. Never my innx here before was not about wait, it was about staying childlike, you know, scared of hitting purbity, what does that mean? Change all of those things, but not you know, my weight. It was it was growing up and when what was happening here in my I had gained weight I knew I had, and I was trying to kind of, well, you know what, maybe I'm a little bust here now. I was trying to like kind of has slide it in my favor, but it was hurting me. So I would go to them like, okay, guys, can we negotiate? I know it hurts my feelings because like Tracy, Tracy, this was always their manta because I'm the oldest of five girls and I have no brothers, and they would say, you don't have any brothers, so you don't know what this is, like this is what brothers and sisters do to each other, and so I would sort of take that for a moment and there would sort of be that joke of if it was true, we couldn't say it. It's true, we couldn't say it. And I was like, okay, but still hurting my feelings. It's still hurting my feelings, and so I would like, negotiate, could you take out that joke? And I'd be like a joke like, here comes why load And you're not talking just about Carol anymore. You're talking about me, Tracy Gold, And now I have to be in front of an audience that's lasting at me and my body and my weight, and it just it became it became tough, and I would have, like, you know, just people would give me like unsolicited advice. You know, oh, don't do that. Don't drink diet coke. That's what's doing because I continually always I'm a diet coke girl. And I kept saying, if it was true, they wouldn't make these jokes. Nobody would be that cruel to me. Nobody would be that cruel. And my dad's an agent at this point, and so he gets a phone call saying, wait on Tracy to lose weight. Well that was a blow, and I they said a couple times and I kind of would go, okay, I'm going to go to the gym more. I didn't take it as seriously, but then you know, I sit down. Really happened where I was like, okay, maybe like my thyroid is off. You know, I'm eighteen now, maybe my thyroid is kind of messing up. And so I went to an endocinologist and my mom took me there and I'm thinking, okay, my weight is you know, like maybe a little high, because you know, there's just an imbalanced and they did all the tests and he's like, no, you're fine, You're fine. And unfortunately for me, though, he was a doctor who had just written a book and he was very proactive in this diet that he had wrote a book about. And the diet was, you know, you can go on a five hundred calorie diet for less time, or a thousand calorie diet. And I was like, well, I'm going to wrap in a quicker results and be over the diet. I'd rather do that and you get this done with And he he said, it's put you on the five proNT of telorie diet. And it was so extreme. And he taught me how to put my body into this thing called ktosis, where your body's basically starving itself and eating off its own self. So within a month I had lost twenty pounds easily. And and I did it, and I did it quietly, and I didn't tell any anyone I was doing it. I just went and did it. And all of a sudden, everybody's coming up to me on the set, you know, everywhere, kind of going, oh my god, you look good, you look so beautiful, you look so amazing, and you know, at that time, I think everybody was meant well, but in my view of it, it was like, was I that embarrassing before? Was I absolutely kidding myself that I could go on National TV be Carol Fever? And I really was that person they were seeing those jokes about. And I was like, something hit me, and I'm like, I will not be the book but anybody's joke again. You will not get that from me. So I became resolute, and I'm really stubborn. I'm a Taurus. I became resolute and not letting that happen. And I stayed on the diet. It's a really hard diet to stay up because you're basically starving. So I basically kept going until I couldn't because you can't have to start yourself continually months or months on end. So I would do these negotiating acts with my things and like, oh, I'm eating days and not eating days and things like that, and you know, and that became an unsustainable thing, you know. Especially I met my dear beloved husband when I was twenty years old, and I remember one time I said we were going out to lunch, and he goes he would even have him like, it's a Wednesday, I don't eat. I would not eat all week and I would like eat anything I wanted to on the weekend, basically, and he was like, he's from New Jersey and he was like what, Oh my god. I'm like, are you kidding me? He's like, that's crazy. So then I would make negotiations with myself. But as I'm doing this, I'm getting lower and lower and lower and lower in weight. But you know, you're in hockeywood, and everybody just kept giving me compliments. And it was making him furious that everybody was complimenting me because he knew I was sick. And then all of a sudden, the jokes came about Carol's working out. Carol becomes homecoming queen Carol becomes all of a sudden, I Carol's this and that, and it reinforces all those things that like having like ten fifteen extra pounds on you when you're eighteen and figuring it out is really just bad. And it put me into a tailspin that I just found I couldn't get out of. You know, people asked me, did I think it was a cry for help? No, I don't. I think it was a really internal thing. I don't think I wanted help at that point. I wanted to keep myself safe and protected. It was a self coping mechanism to keep myself safe and that, you know, you know, whether I like it or not. The set, it had an element of misogyny to it because they're always bringing in the beautiful actress of the week, you probably you know, a few years older than me and coming in and you know, dolling them up and sexualizing that and all of those things. So there was and it was a boys club. It really was a boys club. So, I mean, there were some female writers on it, but you know, it was. In fact, one of the mail writers was one of my wrote some of the greatest Carol sever scripts. But it was a very gear towards make all the women beautiful and the men look and all of that sort of stuff. As everybody got older, you know, as we entered it to high school and things like that, and I became very, very very self protective of myself and I kept continuing to lose weight. And I remember, and it was the irony of all ironies. They basically said to me, they called me Dad once again. This is a few months later and they say, we need Tracy to gain weight. She's getting too thin on count she's looking not healthy. And my dad came and told me. I'm like, well, this is the all ironies of life? Are you kidding me? Can I never please anybody? But at that point I was pretty dug in and pretty stuck on it and sick. Be very honest, I was really sick at this point. And so you know, I tried going to outpatient programs. My husband would take me there and everything, and I just I just was too deep in for every restriction I had for myself to undo, it was doubly as hard and I just couldn't and I wasn't willing to make myself that vulnerable, especially on that set. And so Growing Pains was like I loved Buring pains, and I have the best memories of Buring Pains, but that was, you know, a hard time for me. And you know, do I blame the writers? I always say no, because I was the one that was very susceptible to it. I think if I had been on the cheerleading team and a cheerleading coach had said the same thing to me, I think that would have happened to me, I would have gone down a road of restriction, and you know, it was magnified because I was on TV. Possibly I'll never know, but it definitely I think I play blame on myself because I'm the one who has that in my brain that could let that affect me so deeply where other people can say, like, okay, mister, I'm all right, I'm awesome, take a step back. But I just being a child after so long, it was so ingrained in me that like what all these producers say and say to me has to be true, you know, and you listen to them, and their opinion is what matters. And so I just kept going until they said I even needs to gain weight. But you know, I had gone too down the rat far down the rabbit hole. I remember, i'd you know, I had taken just throwing up and stuff. And I remember my boyfriend, my now husband of thirty thirty years. We just celebrate we've been together thirty fives. I always have to think about that we've been together thirty five years. And I remember he came one day to my dressing room and he nailed the bathroom door shut. He has you went to the or to the proper department. He said. I He's like, I need a nail and hammer and then you and well at this point, because he had been around and he's there, like why and he's like a man nail Tracy's bathroom shut. And they're like, thank you, thank you for looking after her. We're so worried about her. And you know, he did that, and I screamed and yelled because you know, when you're an actress, getting your own bathroom is a big thing. You don't always get it, you know, especially when you're first starting out and you're a little kid. You know you have to go to the public bathroom, but in the winter, bago and things like that, and so I was like stopping my feet, but in a big way, I was relieved. I think many people with eating disorders could probably understand this, because it took the power away from me. I would now have to go to a public bathroom and want anyone hearing me throw up, because there was always somebody who would come and eat with me at lunch, Like my husband would come eat with me at lunch, make sure I ate. He would leave, I'd go throw up, so you know, and he'd became keen to that that that was happening, and so somebody taking that power away from me was helpful, you know. I remember he thought he could take me away to Florida Santa Belle Island for the New Year's break, and I was really really given strict instructions, I need to come back healthier, and I was like, I'm going to want to I'm going to gain weight. I will, I promise. Well, it happened to be very cold winter in Florida. I know, snow, but very cold, and I got bronchitis, and I came back sick, and I came back to dinner and he's so sweet. He thought he could take me out of California or Los Angeles and I could suddenly eat. But I couldn't and I had no matter where I was, and I got sicker, so I had to go into a hospital. They came to a doctor came to the set to kind of take a look at me in my dressing room to check out how I was on your clodt bronchitis, and they sent me home. I'm like, okay, that's fine, I'm sick. I don't feel like being there anyway. And they're like, she needs to go somewhere before she comes back on the set. And I didn't know this years later, but it was Joanna turns, God bless her and I should say something. Joanna introduced me to my husband, Robbie. So she's played an important part in a lot in so many ways. She called the studio and she said, this girl's gonna die on your watch if you don't step in and do something. And something was done. And so they didn't give me help though, tell me where to go. So they had There was one hospital we knew of and I was admitted into it and it was the most tough love hospital you could ever imagine it was. It was. It was terrible. It was really a psychiatric hospital. It was where I think they would put Hollywood actresses where they you know, they had a moment and I I was there and it was like lockdown. It really was. It was lockdown. And I was there three days and I said, no way, I'm not saying here. I am going to find my voice, I'm going to find my power. I am going to get out of here. I signed myself out against doctor's advice. I took a cab home, against anybody's advice. The only person I would speak to you from a paint pone was my husband. Everybody else would hang up on me because they were told to hang up. I mean they thought they were doing the right thing. And I took a week to find the right doctor. And I go to doctors, I tell them what I was going through because it was so public. He was like living in a fish bowl, and it broke the news and everything like that became public, became the govern inchoir all these things, and it was like my struggle now was it was really like public. And I had to find a doctor. And I found ucla Eating Disorder Institute, and I went there and they seemed to know what they were doing, a specific doctor, the head of it. And I committed to it. I did, and I committed to not to go into the patient anyway. I would not go and pay. Nobody was ever going to get me into a hospital again. I started to find my voice, and that is such a powerful thing as woman, as a child actress, as an actress, and probably as a woman in any field, to find your voice. And I remember when I got out and People magazine called and they said, we want to do a story on Tracy. What she's going through and I'm like, are you kidding me? I don't even know what I'm going through. I'm trying to save my life here and I can't speak to People Magazine and they're like, don't worry, don't worry. We'll just stop to other people and we'll still have a story. But you know, don't bother her at it. And when I heard that, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no. Nobody's going to speak for me anymore. Nobody's not going to happen to let me have my voice. I'm going to speak for me. I am going to tell what's going on, and I will say yes to the interview and I'll do it. I did not want for my voice to be the only one not heard. And it ended up the cover of People magazine and well, I think the second best selling issue of that year. And I'm very proud of coming out about it because, you know, not nobody had in that assistance. And I had known about I knew about Karen Carpenter, who never exposed to tell her a little about it. Debbie Boone, who wrote a book and The Best Little Girl in the World, which is a book, you know, the very beautiful Jennifer Jason Lee who I later you know, But when I was fourteen I did work with he would miss stones to say, played the hand of Me Down Kid. I was the hand Me Down Kid and after school special. But after that, all of a sudden, my voice with the eating disorder became more powerful. I decided, you know, I was gone for three episodes. For three Growing Pains was canceled. It was in the seventh season. I want to say something that I noticed during the later years of Growing Pains and when I was in the depth of my anorexia. And I often think of Shannon when I think of this, But Shannon was not afraid to use her voice. I mean, it's like it's one of her best gifts. You know. She wasn't going to be bullied. And I allow myself to be bullied too long. I because I was told to keep your mouth shut and be a good girl. On a set, I allowed everybody bring me in the first let me go home, the last. I once said, why am I staying the latest? And one of the ages was like, because you're at least two complaint about it, You're the one who's who doesn't say anything about it. And I'm like thought to myself, I wait, so wait a minute, I'm being punished for being cooperative? Are you kidding me? Like my kindness has turned into like using it against me? Like I'm like no more. That is like like no more. And I've read I know so much of what Shannon had to go through in the nineties, and it was a difficult world for girls in the nineties and speaking up to the brass the men, you know, and having your voice heard and all these things, and it was hard. And you know, a young guy says something, you know, I know, the male counterparts and my beautiful counterpart all could have say things, but like I didn't, and it made it It made me like almost like mute, you know. And she fought against that. And I think when you fight against that as a woman, you're called difficult. And that's really the bottom line. I think you're found difficult. And I don't know if that stigma is really goes. I think we've come a long way. I think it's very different than it was. But yeah, but I think, you know, people are speaking out more about mistreatment on sets and you know, things like that, and using their voice and their power. I also remember, you know, when I graduated high school and I didn't have to go to school anymore, and all of a sudden, I go back to my dressing room and relax. What I might whitman, I've been doing the job of two people, because children are doing the jobs and two people the job. The only job really was supposed to have as a kid is get good grades and go to school and get good grades. That's what you're supposed to do. That's your job. But when you're a kid actor, your job is to get good grades. But your job is also to do a good job on a set. And you cannot work unless you get a D or a C or above. So if you get a D, like I was terrible at math, If I got a D and it came up designed when a working permit was that I had to be renewed, I couldn't work until the next cycle the working permit happened, and the work permit happened, and luckily it never happened. It always felt safely for me. So that's why many, you know, parents put their children into these professional schools so that they can kind of slide them through so they can keep working. Whereas my parents insisted we go to regular schools, which I applaud them for, but it didn't make it any easier to go in and out. And all of those things, the stability to growing pains helped, you know, once I got distability and one teacher and all that time getting through high school that it definitely helped. It wasn't great going back in March. It's like, you know, Carol Seefer's here, and you know, but it was okay. But finding my voice with the anorexia was the really big thing. And I never intended to be the voice of anorexia, but you know, I grew into the role because I think that there were so many misconceptions about it. Then misconception I think I hate the most as sasidanity. It's about you know, you know, as much as I love my People magazine cover, it does see starving for beauty, which is a little life that's not really the point, but you know, it was nineteen ninety two, but you know, just letting people know this is a real disease. And I became a voice and I did a whole prime time live thing with Diane Sawyer. She followed me for a year, and I swear I wanted to quit a zillion times. They had me have it. It was like kind of the beginning of reality TV. Like camera and if I was having a moment where I wouldn't eat, my dad would pull up the camera. Tracy, how are you feeling about this? If you put that camera down, I don't want to talk about it, So tell me how you're feeling right now. Like that. But in turn, it really did turn into a great piece and very monumental for me because at that point, also, you know, in all my best intentions of getting better, I continue to lose weight and I got to a dangerous way to a wait where one night I couldn't sleep and I thought to myself, oh my god, if I were to die tonight at twenty three, nobody would have to guess why. They said. One look at me and they would know what happened. And I'm like, I can't let that happen. I don't want that to happen. I had a boyfriend I was madly in love with you I wanted to get married to and he was not going to tolerate an Anarexic wife. He was there and supportive and helpful, but he needed me to get better and to work on this and not to stay stuck in that place. And he loved me enough to push me to that direction that, like Tracy, this is unacceptable. You have to fight. And I thought, you know, one of the things I teach you when you're recovering from anorexia is you know, what are you losing by staying this thin, holding onto this beast? A lot of girls name it and stuff like that. I never do anything like that, but holding onto this control, what are you losing? And I thought to myself, well, I'm going to lose the best thing that star happening to me, and that's my boyfriend. I'm going to lose my career, which I care so much about it and I've worked on since I was four years old. It's the only talent I have, you know. And I was losing things, and I was losing, I think, most importantly, myself. And I really started to fight and I came in and I went to my parents' house and I said, I guess what, I'm going to get better. I'm actually going to get better. And I have a goal weight and it was an eye goal weight. I have a goal weight, and I'm going to get there and I will not another pound. And I never lost another pound. I didn't get to my goal weight, which was a low waight. I look back and I'm like, it took me a very long time to kind of get up there. But every day I was making my own progress. And my husband was so proud of me because he's like, you and I know your progress. You and I know what you're doing. Every day you're breaking down a restriction, and every day you're doing something that's a little more out of your comfort. So if I see you stuck too long, I'll move you forward. And he helped let me do it at my pace and in my safety, safe way, so I had complete control of my recovery. And I think, if I was going to say anything, you know it's about child actors with my eating disorder is so you know, identified with my career as an actress. I can't help but like spend a lot of time talking about it because it was such growth, you know, from being a child actors to an adult old woman, you know, a young woman and you know, finding my voice and becoming a producer. And I remember, as I'm still recovering, I'm not fully recovered. They come to me and they say, we want to do a movie and we're doing a movie on a arexia and we want you to be in it. And I'm like, I can't do that. It's too close. And they said, can we show you the script? And which you was a very very lovely producer, Larry Thompson, and he said, can I send you the script and could you give me some notes of what you think? And I went that through that thing with a red marker dot dot dot dot, and I'm like, this, this, this, this, this, If you put that on TV, you're leading girls get sick. And I said, read the script. I lived with it a bit. I go who else to be it? I know it the best. I'm not going to glamorize it, because I think it's glamorized a lot. And I'm going to make it what it really looks like. It's lonely and it's hard. And so I did it, and I'm very proud of it. And uh, it was an incredible experience and I was very proud of it. It's shown in school and yeah, you know, I always says I'm talking about the aner Excae, the recovery. I remember when we did the last episode of Growing Pains, of course, they the ultimate sensitivity. They have us all sitting around in the living room eating pizza and we're doing the dress rehearsal. I remember one of the producers came running down to It's like, Tracy, this is looking very fake. We can tell you're not eating pizza. We need to take a bite. I looked at him, like, do you think it would be in this predicament if I could just take a bite of this pizza. I always used to say, you might as well just put a dead rat in front of me and say, hey, eat the tail. Never gonna happen. So, you know, it showed me the lack of understanding that was out there about this illness. You know. I always also say being a child actor, and I started this podcast, Shannon's podcast with this is that I think the connotation with child actor and if you can grow into being you know, an actor as an adult, that's the golden prize. That's that's the meaning of success. That you're a child actress and now you can transition into be the in the adult acting world, diminishing the success. So many people never get to experience that they had as a child and why take away somebody's success. It's just not a sustainable success, you know, it's don't label it, oh, that's a child actor. And I think too often it is put that way, and I would like to change that term to have something a little bit more positive. And yeah, there are tragedies that have gone on from being a child actor, and I think as we go on, we're learning so much of what to do and not to do. And I think there were very very many mistakes years before I had the experience. It was worse to the years I was growing up. Maybe a little better into the years now hopefully a lot better. But I think we would all have a shared experience of kind of being in the system of adults telling you what to do, and you're a child and adults world, and you're put into unnatural position of being the kind of the an adult working with children. You're doing the same thing that these adults are doing. You're the same expectation and more so, I always say have grace for child actors. I really do. And when you say child actor should be a good thing, should be a good thing because you did something, especially if their careers are handled correctly. So often it's the careers that aren't handled correctly. I was very blessed my parents kept me out of the Hollywood scene. I had to go home all after set home to my house in the valley. I didn't go to parties. I was never allowed to attend any of those you know, kid awards. I was never allowed tottend any of those alfie parties they had where you know there was you know, you could find trouble. And I think there's a lot of people in our industry that do prey on younger kids. So I do think always having somebody looking after your back because you are an adult world is important, and that's why they try and put safety nets with teachers on the sets and stuff like that. But you know, I think if you're kept out of those worlds, I think that's what kept me out of all of that stuff, you know that you can kind of go through as a teenager and a young adult. I think my honor XIA was kind of my speaking up for myself in a way, my rebellion. That was my kind of saying like no. And I was lucky. I consider myself lucky because I've had a really successful career. Careers go with Ebbs and flows, and to be in this business you have to have the thickest skin because for everyone that likes you, there is name somebody who hates you. I mean, God help us with the Internet. If I had been a child act our teen actor with the Internet, I don't know what I would have done. I might really be too sensitive for that because I would go to the newsstand every Tuesday to see what was out, you know, inquired to see if I was in it or what they were saying about me. And I was dreading it and I was so scared. But to think that you have to wake up every morning and relentlessly out there is just beyond comprehension. So I just I have a lot of heart for kid actors in this social media age, you know. And I consider my career success, you know. I used to think that when I was a kid, if I don't win in an Academy award, it'll all be for knock. Now I still have time, but I have not come to fuition yet. I never say that. But I have four beautiful children. I have been blessed with the most amazing family. My husband is my you know. People say like, oh, you're lasted in Hollywood all these years, you know, you know, thirty five years, and it's the secret. I think it's simple, just finding the right person. And that's what it was. And I got extremely lucky. And we have we found each other, you know, and we're smart enough to know that we have found each other. And so you know, I'm I'm blessed with a lot of riches and I I'm so honored to do this and I think I'm speaking for women and I speak, you know, on Shannon's podcast and thinking about us, I could cry, you know, seventh seventh grade and ninth grade, you know, and where your life would go. And she should be so proud of herself and the way she raised the voice for women and this podcast and to be able to be a part of bringing it to you and helping keep it alive. I just think that's a real blessing. And I'm such a talker. I could tell you so much more. I think I've probably spoken a lot and I've brought you to kind of my full circle journey. There's so much more to tell. Maybe next time, all right, be well,