Tracy Nelson

Tracy Kristine Nelson, born October 25, 1963, in Santa Monica, California, is an American actress and fourth-generation entertainer. Her father was musician and film actor Ricky Nelson, and her mother is actress and artist Kristin Nelson, née Harmon. Nelson's great-grandparents were vaudeville performers Hazel Dell McNutt and Roy Hilliard Snyder, whose daughter Harriet Nelson starred in the ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet alongside her husband Ozzie Nelson from 1952 to 1966. On her mother's side, her maternal grandparents were Heisman Trophy–winning University of Michigan football star Tom Harmon and actress Elyse Knox. Her siblings include Matthew Nelson and Gunnar Nelson, who formed the 1990s rock group Nelson, and Sam Nelson. Among her aunts and uncles are actors David Nelson, Mark Harmon, and Kelly Harmon.

Nelson's performance background began early and spans multiple disciplines. She trained in ballet for seventeen years under Tania Lachine and studied theater with Kim Stanley and Nina Foch, as well as briefly in the United Kingdom. At age four, she appeared in the 1968 film Yours, Mine and Ours alongside Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball. While still in grammar school, she performed as a professional dancer with a company that toured throughout California, and after graduating from the Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles in 1981, she performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She later studied Dance and European History at Bard College in upstate New York, having previously attended The Buckley School.

Her television career gained momentum in 1982 when she played Jennifer DeNuccio on the series Square Pegs. In 1986, she appeared in Paul Mazursky's film Down and Out in Beverly Hills as an anorexic daughter. Nelson co-starred as Sister Stephanie in all three seasons of The Father Dowling Mysteries and held series regular roles on Aaron Spelling's drama Glitter, the sitcom A League of Their Own, and the Australian series The Man from Snowy River. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, she made guest appearances on numerous television series, including Family Ties, St. Elsewhere, Murphy Brown, The Nanny, 7th Heaven, Melrose Place, Will & Grace, Matlock, Diagnosis Murder, and Seinfeld. She has appeared in more than twenty television movies, among them The Perfect Nanny in 2000 and The Rival in 2006.

In 1994, Nelson appeared on Broadway in Grease, playing the role of Rizzo, a credit she also held with the production's touring company. Nelson has also written a book about her personal experiences and a screenplay about her family titled The Nelsons.

Nelson has survived three separate cancer diagnoses. One month after her 1987 marriage, and approximately a year after her father died in an aircraft crash on New Year's Eve 1985 near DeKalb, Texas, she was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkin's lymphoma. She achieved remission following surgery, ABVD chemotherapy, and radiation treatment at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. As a consequence of radiation exposure, she was subsequently diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2005 and breast cancer in 2010, recovering from the latter following a bilateral mastectomy and complete reconstruction. Nelson has been active in cancer research advocacy, serving as spokesperson for the Lymphoma Research Foundation of America. She received the organization's Lifesaver Award as well as the Jill Ireland Award from the Amie Karen Cancer Fund for Children.