A TV star from the 1980s looks very different now that she isn’t famous because of a tragedy.
Sister Stephanie on Father Dowling Mysteries was played by Tracy Nelson, who fought three kinds of cancer.
Tragically, the actress was told she had stage two Hodgkin’s lymphoma just one month after getting married to William R. Moses in 1987.
Sad to say, her famous musician father Ricky Nelson died in an airplane crash on New Year’s Eve, a year before she was diagnosed.
It happened in a field in Texas in 1985.
Chemotherapy and radiation in Los Angeles put her cancer into remission.
After beating the illness, she was told she had thyroid cancer in 2005, after radiation had hurt her.
She was told she had breast cancer five years later and had both mastectomy and full reconstruction.
Now that she’s out of the spotlight, she works to support cancer research and was the spokesperson for The Lymphoma Research Foundation of America.
Also, the group gave Tracy, 61, the “Lifesaver Award.” The Amie Karen Cancer Fund for Children also gave her the “Jill Ireland Award.”
Their marriage ended in 1997, after ten years.
They have a daughter together, Remington Elizabeth Moses. Her son Elijah Nelson Clark was born in 2001 with Chris Clark.
Tracy began her acting career when she was four years old. She was born into a family of actors and performers.
In 1968’s Yours, Mine, and Ours, she played one of Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball’s daughters.
Kristin Nelson, an actress, gave birth to Tracy in Santa Monica. She has three younger siblings named Matthew, Gunnar, and Sam.
Matthew and Gunnar made the rock band Nelson in 1990.
She got the part of the anorexic daughter in Down and Out in Beverly Hills after playing Jennifer in Square Pegs.
She also played Sister Stephanie on the TV show The Father Dowling Mysteries for three seasons.
Along with Glitter, A League of Their Own, and The Man from Snowy River, she was a regular on Aaron Spelling’s shows.
The Nelsons is the name of Tracy’s book about her family and life.
