Hollywood Expectations Led to GROWING PAINS Star’s Eating Disorder
By Movieguide® Contributor
GROWING PAINS star Tracey Gold credits her on-screen mom and future husband for helping her overcome a dangerous eating disorder.
“One thing you have to know about being a child actor. I always say this when I talk to kids who want to be child actors, I’m like, you have to be the best person on that set,” Gold said during an episode of the “Let’s Be Clear” podcast.
She continued, “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.”
This mindset meant that, when Gold returned to set one season after gaining a few pounds, she didn’t feel comfortable telling the show’s writers to stop writing jokes about her weight into the show — and saying them onset.
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“It was out of my character to speak up, but it was hurting me, and I was sensitive to it,” the actress said. “It’d be like a joke like, ‘Here comes wide load.’ And you’re not talking just about Carol anymore. You’re talking about me, Tracey Gold. And now I have to be in front of an audience that’s laughing at me and my body and my weight.”
Things escalated to the point that the studio called Gold’s father, her agent, and asked that she lose 20 pounds, which she did. The positive reinforcement she received from people on set was the beginning of Gold’s eating disorder.
“I would make negotiations with myself,” she explained. “You know, you’re in Hollywood, and everybody just kept giving me compliments. And it was making [my then-boyfriend] furious that everybody was complimenting me because he knew I was sick.”
Gold shared that she had “taken to throwing up” and Roby Marshall, her then-boyfriend and now husband, “came one day to my dressing room and he nailed the bathroom door shut. He went to the prop department…He’s like, ‘I need a nail and hammer’…And they’re like, ‘Why?’ And he’s like, ‘I’m gonna nail Tracey’s bathroom shut.’ And they’re like, ‘Thank you. Thank you for looking after her. We’re so worried about her.’”
She told The Huffington Post that her eating disorder even impacted the production of the final episode of GROWING PAINS, as the last scene showed the family eating pizza together.
“[It] lends itself to be very difficult, again, because I couldn’t eat pizza. So…I very badly fake-eat it,” Gold explained. “I mean, where did my acting skills go in that last scene? Horrible! I forgot how to hold a piece of pizza. It was ridiculous.”
Another person on set was also outspoken about the studio helping Gold overcome her eating disorder — her onscreen mother, Joanna Kerns.
“I didn’t know, till years later, but it was Joanna Kerns, god bless her,” she said. “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.”
Gold received outpatient treatment at UCLA’s Eating Disorder Clinic and overcame her disorder, but it’s still something she actively works on.
“I go through my life and I’m not obsessing about food,” the actress told The Hollywood Reporter. “It doesn’t control my day. But I’m smart enough to know in the back of my mind, I have to be mindful not to skip a meal when I’m stressed. I’m not in treatment anymore and I try to eat healthy.”
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