Where Is Missy Gold Now? The Benson Star Who Became a Psychologist

By CelebPaid Research · Updated October 7, 2026 · 8 min read

Missy Gold as a child actress. The former Benson star is now a licensed psychologist in California.Image via Wikimedia Commons

She was the governor's daughter — Katie Gatling, all seven seasons of Benson (1979–86), growing up on screen from age nine to sixteen. Missy Gold — born Melissa Fisher, younger sister of Growing Pains' Tracey Gold — was one of the most recognizable child actresses of the early '80s. Then she did the most decisive thing in this series: she turned down a soap-opera test, went to college, and never looked back.

"I didn't go into acting as a child for some great love [of it]," she told Page Six in 2022. "In the family, we all sort of worked and acted... and I was always more the student." This is the verified story of where Missy Gold is now.

The Peak: Katie Gatling and the Gold Sisters (1976–1986)

Born July 14, 1970, in Great Falls, Montana, Gold's first credit — the miniseries Captains and the Kings — came in 1976, at six. Then the run: Eight Is Enough, Fantasy Island, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Trapper John, M.D. — and in 1979, the role: Katie Gatling, Governor Eugene X. Gatling's daughter, on ABC's Benson (the Soap spinoff starring Robert Guillaume).

She played Katie for all seven seasons and 158 episodes (1979–86), winning the Young Artist Award for best young actress in a comedy series in 1984. The Gold sisters were a phenomenon: Tracey as Carol on Growing Pains, Brandy as Alexis on St. Elsewhere, Missy as Katie on Benson — three sisters on three hit shows simultaneously. (Two more siblings, Jessie and Cassie, acted as well.) Her final credit: voicing Blink in The Blinkins (1986–87).

And then the decision. Invited to test for a soap opera — the standard next step, the safe money — she said no. "I knew I wanted to go to college, and I knew I wanted to do something beyond that... so I said no to even testing, finished up school and applied to colleges." At sixteen, she turned down the industry's standing offer. The student had decided.

The Education: Georgetown to a Ph.D.

The academic record is the real résumé now: B.A. from Georgetown University, then a Ph.D. from the California School of Professional Psychology. Not a celebrity degree — a doctorate, the full clinical training, the license. She is now a licensed psychologist practicing in California.

"I was always more the student," she said — and the family context sharpens it. "My older sister, who also was an actress and is an actress, is still very much in her wheelhouse. But for me, I'm much more of an introvert." Tracey stayed in the wheelhouse; Missy built a different one. The introvert found the profession made for introverts who listen: the consulting room instead of the soundstage.

There's a lovely irony the BestLife profile caught: her child-acting days "have had a lasting effect and play a role in her career today." The girl who performed emotions for cameras now helps real people with real emotions — the performance became the practice, inverted. She knows what it is to be watched; now she does the watching, clinically, helpfully.

The Person: Married, Mother, Private

Gold married Brian Herskowitz in 1996 — thirty years — and they have two children (son Max among them). The family math is the quiet kind: no headlines, no reality shows, just the decades. She practices psychology in California, lives out of the spotlight, and gives interviews rarely — the 2022 Page Six conversation being the notable exception, and even that was measured, reflective, at peace.

The Gold sisters' diverging paths are the real story here. Tracey: the public struggles, the Growing Pains fame, the continued acting. Brandy: St. Elsewhere, then her own quieter path. Missy: the cleanest break of the three — sixteen, no to the soap test, yes to Georgetown, yes to the Ph.D. Three sisters, three negotiations with fame; Missy's was the most complete.

She doesn't do conventions. She doesn't do Cameo. She doesn't trade on Katie Gatling. The 158 episodes are a fact about her past, not a brand for her present. The psychologist's office has no posters from Benson — or if it does, they're for her, not the clients.

The Meaning: The Student Wins

"I was always more the student." It's the thesis of the whole series, stated once, perfectly. The child actors who survive Hollywood are so often the ones who were never really of it — the students, the readers, the kids with somewhere else to be. Gold is the purest case: she didn't love it, she knew it, she left at the first honorable exit, and she spent the next forty years becoming the thing she actually was.

The Ph.D. is the mic drop. Not every exit needs a doctorate to be valid — the pizza shops and credit unions count too — but Gold's is the most emphatic: the complete professional transformation, the licensed expertise, the life built on brains rather than face. Katie Gatling grew up to understand people for a living. The governor's daughter became the doctor.

Where Is Missy Gold Now?

As of 2026, Missy Gold is a licensed psychologist practicing in California — Ph.D., Georgetown B.A., thirty years married to Brian Herskowitz, two children. She has not acted since The Blinkins (1987) and maintains a private life.

The student won. She always does.

The Page Six Interview: "More the Student"

The September 2022 Page Six interview is the Rosetta Stone for Missy Gold — the rare moment she explained herself, at length, on the record. Every quote lands like a thesis statement. "I didn't go into acting as a child for some great love [of it]." "In the family, we all sort of worked and acted... and I was always more the student." "I knew I wanted to go to college, and I knew I wanted to do something beyond that."

The sibling comparison is the most human part: "My older sister, who also was an actress and is an actress, is still very much in her wheelhouse. But for me, I'm much more of an introvert." No judgment of Tracey's path — just the clear-eyed recognition that the wheelhouse wasn't hers. The introvert doesn't do seven seasons of sitcom for fun; she does it because the family works, and then she goes and becomes a psychologist, which is what introverts who like people do.

The interview's timing matters too: 2022, the nostalgia economy at full roar, every former child star with a podcast or a memoir. Gold gave one interview — measured, reflective, complete — and went back to her practice. No series, no tour, no brand. The student said her piece and returned to her students, the clients, the work. The mic drop didn't need a stage.

"I was always more the student" might be the single best sentence any former child star has ever said about leaving. Not bitter, not broken, not better-than — just accurate. She was the student. She still is. The classroom just has a couch now.

Then vs Now: Two Chapters

Missy Gold traded 158 episodes for a doctorate — and the trade was the smartest deal of her life.

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