“Growing Pain” Star Tracey Gold says her TV mom Joanna Kerns helped save her life during the battle for anorexia

As her character Carol Seaver on television, “Growing pain“She dealt with the danger of adolescence, actress Tracey Gold struggled with her own problem: a weakening eating disorder.

Studies’ procedures – which included a search to lose weight and then get some back, as well as writing jokes about their weight in the show – they made it difficult for gold to separate from their character. However, in the same way that art influenced reality, Gold says it was her TV mother, Joanna Kerns, Who would eventually look out for her, pressing the crew to help her to be healthy.

After three seasons, Gold noticed writing on the show “It became a little more limited” because the program bought to “be funny” and “stay on top”.

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“Unfortunately, I think at the time it became at my expense, and it became because Mike Seaver a fat joke about Carol Seaver began,” she said about Kirk Cameron, who starred in the show Golder’s older brother, during the time Episode of Podcasta Shannen Doherty, “Let’s be clear. “

A member of the acting line -up, but only a child, gold said that she felt that there was not much of her in the direction of her character. “One thing you need to know about being a children’s actor. I always say that when I talk to children who want to be children’s actors, I am like that, you have to be the best person on that set. You watch the adult you look at adults, you laugh, you forget if you forget if you forget if you forget if you forget if you forget if you forget if That.

“The setting on the set is like that. So, if these jokes came in, I really didn’t have a voice, so I would just be like that, I don’t think I was allowed to say anything. But I had power, a little, because Carol Seaver was at once mine, And I created it, and I was known for her, so suddenly I felt a little protective. “

Gold said at the time that he was not hyperfixed in weight, so jokes were easier to accept, although after they went on hiatus one summer, things changed. “I came [back with] and freshman 15 Basically, then jokes accelerated when I returned and got stronger, “she remembered.” It was out of my character to speak, but it hurt me, and I was sensitive to it. And I knew I got a little pound and never had a problem before. “

Although she struggled with a messy meal in the past, the catalyst was different at the time. “It was about staying childish, you know, scared to hit puberty.”

Gold was negotiated with the crew, many of which were men. “Do I like it or not. The set had an element of Misogini because they always bring a nice actress of the week … a few years older than me and they come in and, you know, to get them into going out and sexualizing that and all these things,” she said . “It was a boy’s club. It was really a club for boys.”

“They would say, you don’t have a brothers, so you don’t know what it is. The brothers and sisters do to each other,” said Gold, who grew up with four sisters. Although the jokes are still in pain, “it would be like a joke like,” Here’s a broad load. “And you don’t talk about Carol anymore.

The studio eventually called Gold’s father, who was her agent, and asked her to lose weight.

“That was a blow,” said Gold, who would end up on a diet of 500 calories. “So, within a month, I lost 20 pounds. Simple,” she said. “I did it and I did it quietly and I didn’t tell anyone to do it. I just went and did it. And all of a sudden, everyone came to me on the set, you know, everywhere, kind going, ‘Oh, God, you look so good, You look so beautiful, you look so amazing.

“At the time I think everyone … thought well, but in my opinion, it was so, was that as shameful? Did I absolutely joke that I could go to the national TV, be Carol Seaver, and I was really the person they spoke to those jokes? “

Things then moved – worse. “Something hit me, and I’m like,” I’m not going to be a butt again, “she said.

The actress would go through for days without meals.

“I would negotiate with myself. But as I do it, I become lower, lower and lower and lower weight. But you know, you are in Hollywood and you all have just given me compliments. And that was [my then-boyfriend] Furious that everyone praised me because he knew I was sick, “she said of her husband Roby Marshall, whom she met Kerns. The couple got married in 1994, two years after the end of the show.

Her weight influenced the play. “And then all of a sudden, jokes came that Carol was practicing. Carol became the queen of return home.”

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“Reinforces … It’s like you have 10, 15 extra pounds on you when you’re 18 years old and realize it’s really bad. And that put me in a tail that I just found out I couldn’t get out. Know, people asked me , I think that’s in order?

“I became very, very, very self -protection to myself and continued to lose weight. And I remember – and that was the irony of all irony – they basically told me, they once again called my father, this is and for a few months, and they They say, “We need tracey to gain weight.

Although he tried healthy, Gold said it was too late.

“I accepted to throw myself and find myself,” she admitted. “I remember [Marshall] He came to my locker room one day and scored the bathroom door. He went to the prescription department … he is like, “I need a nail and a hammer” … and they are like, “Why?” And he’s like, “I’ll close Tracey’s bathroom.” And they are like, ‘Thank you. Thank you for being careful about her. We are so worried about her. “”

At one point, gold went on vacation with Marshall, Florida, and the expectation on the set was that it would return healthier. “She thought he could take me out of California or Los Angeles and I could eat at once. But I couldn’t,” she said. Unfortunately, she infected her bronchitis and lost more pounds. The doctor eventually came to the set and sent her home.

“Like, okay, that’s fine, I’m sick. I don’t feel like I’m there anyway,” she said they sent home. “And they are like, she has to go sometime before he returns to the set. And I didn’t know, until years later, but it was Joanna Kerns, God blessed … she called the studio and said, this girl will die on an hour if you don’t get in and do something.

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Kerns did not immediately return the Fox News Digital request for comment.

Gold said – without any help in the show – she found a hospital program that concerns “difficult love”, although she would sign on medical advice days later. “I took a taxi home, against any advice. The only person who would talk to me from the phone with the salary was my husband. Everyone else would drop me because they told them to put down. I think they thought they were doing the right thing. All of that thing. “, she said her health became tabloid food.

In the end, she found the UCLA Institute for Eating Disorders, where she was able to receive the treatment of outpatients. “I started finding my voice, which is such a powerful thing as a woman, as an actress as an actress.”

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“I loved” growing pain “and I have the best memories of” growing pain “, but that was, you know, it’s hard for me. And you know, do I blame the writers? Always say no, because I was. One that was very very sensitive to him.

The “growing pain” broadcast seven seasons between 1985 and 1992.