Tracy Kristine Nelson (born October 25, 1963) is an American actress. From a long line of entertainers, she is the daughter of musician Ricky Nelson and actress and painter Kristin Nelson. Early life Nelson was born in Santa Monica, California. She is a fourth-generation performer. Her great-grandparents were vaudeville performers Hazel Dell (née McNutt) and Roy Hilliard Snyder. Their daughter was her paternal grandmother Harriet Nelson, the star of the ABC-TV sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet from 1952-1966. Her parents were musician / film actor Ricky Nelson and actress/artist Kristin Nelson (née Harmon). She has three younger siblings: Matthew Nelson and Gunnar Nelson of the 1990s rock group Nelson, and Sam Nelson. Her paternal grandparents were Ozzie and Harriet Hilliard Nelson. Nelson's maternal grandparents were football star Tom Harmon, a Heisman Trophy winner from the University of Michigan, and actress Elyse Knox. She is also the niece of actors David Nelson, and her mother's siblings Mark Harmon and Kelly Harmon. She went to The Buckley School and graduated in 1981 from the Westlake School for Girls (now Harvard-Westlake School) in Los Angeles. She attended Bard College in upstate New York, studying Dance and European History. Career Nelson started her career early; her first role was as herself at age three months on her grandparents' television show. At age four she played one of Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball's daughters in Yours, Mine and Ours (1968). Her future co-star Tom Bosley also appeared in that movie. Nelson is a professional dancer, having studied ballet for 17 years with Tania Lachine and toured throughout California in a dance company while still in grammar school. Nelson studied theater with Kim Stanley and Nina Foch and briefly in the United Kingdom, performing in The Edinburgh Fringe Festival after graduation from high school. In 1982, she played "valley girl" Jennifer DeNuccio on the television series Square Pegs, and in 1986 she landed the role of the anorexic daughter in Paul Mazursky's film Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Nelson co-starred in the television series The Father Dowling Mysteries as "Sister Stephanie" for its three seasons. She was also a series regular on Aaron Spelling's Glitter, A League of Their Own, and the Australian television series The Man From Snowy River. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Nelson made guest appearances on television series including Family Ties, St. Elsewhere, Murphy Brown, The Nanny, 7th Heaven,