Marta Goldstein was born on October 20, 1963, in the United States and died in November 2020. She worked as a script supervisor in Hollywood for over two decades, contributing to more than a dozen major television series.
Her longest and most celebrated role came on NCIS: New Orleans, where she worked from 2014 until shortly before her passing.
Who is Marta Goldstein?
Marta Goldstein was an American script supervisor who spent over 20 years maintaining continuity on some of television’s most recognized shows.
Her career began in 1996 and spanned multiple broadcast networks, covering comedies, dramas, and procedurals across more than two decades.
She worked entirely behind the scenes. A script supervisor’s job involves tracking every detail of a production, from costume choices and hairstyles to camera angles and timing, to ensure each scene connects seamlessly with the ones before and after it. In a show shot out of sequence, as most television is, that role is essential.
Her work on NCIS: New Orleans lasted nearly six years.
The NCIS: New Orleans team honored her in Season 7, Episode 3, “One of Our Own,” which aired on November 22, 2020, with a title card reading “In Loving Memory of Marta Goldstein.” The tribute prompted an outpouring of fan responses from viewers who had never known her name but had benefited from her work on every episode.
Marta relocated from Los Angeles to New Orleans in 2015 specifically to take the job on NCIS: New Orleans, a move that reflected her commitment to the project.
What Happened to Marta Goldstein?
In 2020, in NCIS season 7, episode 3, “One of Our Own,” the team paid tribute to Marta Goldstein.
For that title card alone, people know Marta is no longer in this world. And according to online sources, Marta Goldstein died in November 2020.
But the exact date of death is not known.
Marta Goldstein Cause of Death
Marta Goldstein’s sudden death shocked everyone on the “NCIS: New Orleans” crew because her death happened suddenly. Thus, there is no assumption for her death as well.
If it were an accident or anything like that, then the news media would surely publish that news. Thus, there are chances that Marta Goldstein may have died of some medical issues.
It has been three years since Marta Goldstein’s family officially announced the cause of her death.
Early Life of Marta Goldstein
Marta Goldstein grew up in the United States and built her professional life entirely within the American television industry.
Details about her family background, her childhood home, and her personal upbringing remain private, as she kept that part of her life out of the public record throughout her career.
What is known is that she made her way into the script supervision field in the mid-1990s, finding work on television productions at a time when that craft required deep knowledge of narrative structure, production logistics, and the technical demands of episodic storytelling.
She brought those skills to her first credited project in 1996.
A 2015 profile in Slidell Magazine offered a rare personal glimpse into Goldstein’s life when she joined NCIS: New Orleans. The piece described her packing up her dogs and moving from Los Angeles to New Orleans just two weeks before the interview, settling into a home on the St. Charles streetcar line, and arriving with a handwritten list of the city’s 31 best restaurants.
That detail suggests a person who embraced new experiences and committed fully to whatever project she took on.
Marta Goldstein Age
Marta Goldstein was born on October 20, 1963, in the United States. She died in November 2020 at the age of 57. Her zodiac sign was Libra.
She spent all 57 of those years in the United States, building a career that touched more than a dozen major television productions across a 24-year span.
Marta Goldstein Ethnicity and Nationality
Marta Goldstein was American by nationality, born and raised in the United States. No details about her specific ethnic background appear in public sources.
Her entire career took place within the American television industry, working on network and cable productions based primarily in Los Angeles and later in New Orleans.
Marta Goldstein Career
Early Career: The Practice and First Projects
Marta Goldstein began her credited career as a script supervisor in 1996, working on Unlikely Angel, a television movie. Two years later, in 1998, she joined the ABC legal drama The Practice, one of the most respected dramatic series on American television at the time.
She worked on The Practice for 26 episodes from 1998 to 2000, giving her sustained experience on a high-stakes network drama.
The show, created by David E. Kelley, ran for eight seasons and received multiple Emmy Awards, making it a prestigious early credit for anyone in the production crew.
She also worked on Boston Public during this period, a school drama set in the same creative universe as The Practice.
In 2003, Goldstein moved to CBS’s Joan of Arcadia, supervising continuity on 14 episodes. Then came one of her longest early runs: 34 episodes of Scrubs from 2006 to 2007, the NBC medical comedy starring Zach Braff.
That run put her on one of the most stylistically unusual shows on television at the time, where narrative structure, fantasy sequences, and tonal shifts made her continuity role especially demanding.
Notable Projects: Ugly Betty, Life, and Lie to Me
From 2007 to 2008, Goldstein supervised 18 episodes of Ugly Betty on ABC, the comedy-drama starring America Ferrera. The show was a critical hit and a culturally talked-about production, giving Goldstein another high-profile credit.
She moved next to NBC’s Life, the crime drama starring Damian Lewis, where she worked 21 episodes from 2008 to 2009. That run was followed by 6 episodes of Lie to Me from 2009 to 2010, the Fox series starring Tim Roth as a deception expert.
Her range in this period covered comedy, drama, and crime procedural formats.
She also worked on Hawthorne in 2011 (3 episodes), The Client List in 2012 (2 episodes), and GCB in 2012 (6 episodes).
In 2013, she supervised 7 episodes of The Goodwin Games. By 2014, she added Surviving Jack (8 episodes) and Episodes (2 episodes) to her credits before her longest commitment arrived.
NCIS: New Orleans and Final Years
In 2014, NCIS: New Orleans launched on CBS, and Marta Goldstein joined the production as its script supervisor starting with the pilot episode. The show, a spin-off of the long-running NCIS franchise, followed a fictional team of federal agents operating in Louisiana.
Goldstein supervised the series through six full seasons. Her last credited episode was Season 6’s “The Man in the Red Suit,” which aired in March 2020.
Across her run with the show, she accumulated credits on more than 80 episodes, making NCIS: New Orleans by far her longest single engagement.
She returned in 2018 to work 5 episodes of NBC’s Reverie alongside her NCIS: New Orleans work, demonstrating she remained active across multiple productions.
She moved from Los Angeles to New Orleans in 2015 to stay closer to the production. The Slidell Magazine profile noted she tracked daily production metrics including hours worked and footage captured for every shooting day, part of the invisible infrastructure that kept the show consistent for viewers.
Goldstein died in November 2020. No cause of death was publicly disclosed by her family or by the network.
Marta Goldstein Filmography
- Unlikely Angel (1996): TV movie, script supervisor
- The Practice (1998-2000): 26 episodes, script supervisor
- Boston Public (2000-2001): script supervisor
- Joan of Arcadia (2003-2004): 14 episodes, script supervisor
- Scrubs (2006-2007): 34 episodes, script supervisor
- Ugly Betty (2007-2008): 18 episodes, script supervisor
- Life (2008-2009): 21 episodes, script supervisor
- Lie to Me (2009-2010): 6 episodes, script supervisor
- Hawthorne (2011): 3 episodes, script supervisor
- The Client List (2012): 2 episodes, script supervisor
- GCB (2012): 6 episodes, script supervisor
- The Goodwin Games (2013): 7 episodes, script supervisor
- Surviving Jack (2014): 8 episodes, script supervisor
- Episodes (2014): 2 episodes, script supervisor
- NCIS: New Orleans (2014-2020): 80+ episodes, script supervisor
- Reverie (2018): 5 episodes, script supervisor
Marta Goldstein Awards and Recognition
Goldstein did not receive formal industry awards during her career. Script supervisors rarely do; their job is designed to be invisible to the audience and is most successful when it goes completely unnoticed.
Her recognition came instead from the colleagues who worked alongside her and the fans who responded to her NCIS: New Orleans tribute.
NCIS: New Orleans paid tribute to her with a title card in Season 7, Episode 3, “One of Our Own,” which aired November 22, 2020, shortly after her death.
That tribute reached a CBS-wide audience and prompted hundreds of fan messages on memorial sites, many from viewers who described her work as the backbone of everything they enjoyed watching each week.
Newsweek, Looper, Distractify, and Monsters and Critics all published tributes to her work within days of the episode airing.
The Bottom Line
Marta Goldstein served as script supervisor on NCIS: New Orleans from 2014 until 2020, working on more than 80 episodes and relocating from Los Angeles to New Orleans to take the job. The show honored her in November 2020 with an “In Loving Memory” title card in Season 7, Episode 3.
Before NCIS: New Orleans, she built a 24-year career on shows including The Practice, Scrubs, Ugly Betty, and Life, working across ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox productions. She was known to her NCIS colleagues as someone who brought both professional precision and personal warmth to the job.
Goldstein died in November 2020 at the age of 57, with no cause of death publicly disclosed.
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