She went through an eating disorder stage,and the producers put fat jokes.I saw it on True Hollywood Story

I don't like sitcoms where they think it's funny to criticize someone over and over and make jokes at their expense. This show went overboard with the Carol jokes. It must have been painful for her to endure week after week.

It is a shame because she was very attractive. I wonder if the cast even knew about her problem before it actually got out of hand?

If I'm remembering this correctly I think Jeremy talked quite a bit about Tracey's e.d. in the True Hollywood thing. I think he said that they never would have made such a big deal of it if they'd all known that she'd had problems with e.d.'s in the past, and I do remember him saying he regretted the fat jokes. (Kirk and the producers didn't say anything, though). I believe he and Kirk just weren't mature enough at the time to realize that it really was excessive, but I think the adults who kept writing all that stuff should have known better.

I also remember Jeremy talking about seeing how skeletal she was when she came out of the dressing room one time and how it really shocked him, so from that I would guess he didn't have any idea how sick she was until then, and I think Joanna also said something about not knowing how bad it was until they hospitalized her.

And I agree she was always very pretty, even when she had what she refers to as her "freshman 15."
:cheers:

I think I remember that Joanna said that she had to go to the producers and tell them that if they didn't do something that she was going to die. The writers went a little too far in their jokes about it period. I mean, even if she wasn't fat (and she was not) after awhile the constant insults could have gotten to anybody. I never understood it, as I said she was very pretty. I don't know what she was like before the show started, but once they had her fixed up (decent hairstyle, no hideous looking glasses) she was attractive.

Did you see her on celebrity mole recently? She looked great!
I thought she looked a lot younger than she is, and a lot of the shots of her seemed to be without makeup, or at least not much makeup. It made me hope I'll look that young too!

Originally posted by mt
Did you see her on celebrity mole recently? She looked great!
I thought she looked a lot younger than she is, and a lot of the shots of her seemed to be without makeup, or at least not much makeup. It made me hope I'll look that young too!

No. :( I don't watch much ABC, so I didn't know she was on it. She looked nice in the GP Movie though.

She is much more healthier and much more beautiful now and is even much more important leading a healthier lifestyle!!

http://www-cgi.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0007/05/lkl.00.html

Found this when I was doing a search on Joanna to see if there is any more info out there about the new movie. Didn't find anything about that, but I did find this old transcript from Larry King where a bunch of tv moms are interviewed. There's a part in it where Joanna talks about the situation with Tracey.



Larry King Live
TV Moms Tell Their Real Stories
Aired July 5, 2000 - 9:00 p.m. ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


I know that you also dealt with an illness on your show with Tracey Gold, who suffered anorexia nervosa. How did you help her? I understand that you did.

KERNS: Well, I didn't ignore it. I didn't act like it wasn't happening. And I actually, I think, lost her friendship for a short period of time because I was so afraid she was going to die that I called the head of the studio and I asked them to intervene. And we talked very much, Tracey and I did, about her taking the initiative to get help herself and she just couldn't do it. Her family really came through and helped her at the time. And she now is OK about it, but it was very hard, because I think she was mad at me for a long time.

Originally posted by mt
Did you see her on celebrity mole recently? She looked great!
I thought she looked a lot younger than she is, and a lot of the shots of her seemed to be without makeup, or at least not much makeup. It made me hope I'll look that young too!

I'm not a reality-TV fan by a long shot, but I saw the commercials for it, and I agree with you.

You can't blame any of the actors, and mostly certainly not Kirk and Jeremy they didn't write the scripts. I am sure they couln't have felt worse about what happened to her. I feel bad for Tracy what a horrible thing to go through, I have read that she had this disorder at age twelve and got through it. Shouldn't the producers have known this when they started to take the show in that direction maybe considered that it was not a positive thing for Tracy or for any of the girls watching at home.