ENDED TV SERIES

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This series follows the trials of widower and single father Anthony “Tony” Micelli (Tony Danza) as he raises his young daughter, Samantha (Alyssa Milano). A shoulder injury has forced Tony to retire from his career as a baseball player with the St. Louis Cardinals and, like so many single parents, he’s struggling with the problem of how to make ends meet and make sure his little girl is properly taken care of at the same time. Worried that Brooklyn isn’t providing the safe environment he wants for Samantha, Tony decides to accept a new job: as a live-in housekeeper in prosperous Fairfield, Connecticut.
But things don’t go smoothly when he turns up for work. The last thing divorced single mother and advertising executive Angela Bower (Judith Light) was expecting was a male housekeeper, and when Tony arrives on her doorstep she turns him down on the spot. Fortunately for Tony he finds an ally in Angela’s mother, Mona (Katherine Helmond), who selected him for the position. Arriving just as he is trying to convince Angela to change her mind, Mona reminds her that a child psychologist has said that Angela’s son Jonathan (Danny Pintauro) needs a male influence. Angela reluctantly agrees to a trial run.

Despite a few teething problems, it soon becomes clear that Tony and Angela are made for each other. More than a great housekeeper, Tony is the perfect father, role model, and friend; everything that Angela and Jonathan need. In return, Angela and Mona are able to give Samantha the feminine guidance and friendship she’s been missing.
Of course, the path of true love never runs smooth and Tony and Angela try to ignore their growing attraction by dating other people and concentrating on their children and jobs. After a short time Mona moves in too. A far-from-typical mother and grandmother, she brings a new dimension to family life and strengthens the bonds between them all.

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Main Cast

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Additional Cast

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Trivia

Shortly before the series premiere of Who’s the Boss? in 1984, Tony Danza (Tony Micelli) was arrested for fighting in a New York bar and charged with a range of offences, including battery. Given the choice of community service or jail time, he opted for community service.

Who’s the Boss? is ranked the 109th best sitcom of all time, according to TV Guide.

In the final years of the series there were rumors of Tony Danza acting unpredictably on set, arguing with directors and flaring up over script changes (it later transpired that the issues were with the writing). It wasn’t the first time Tony had made waves: at the beginning of the 1989-1990 season he staged a two week walkout, apparently due to dissatisfaction that the show was not a “well-oiled machine”. After he returned with apologies for everyone, the crew kept a close eye on his moods for a while before making light of the episode with t-shirts that said “I Survived Week Six”!

Alyssa Milano is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and a strong supporter of PETA.

Katherine Helmond (Mona Robinson) has been married twice. She married her second husband, David Christian in 1962, and with 55 years of marriage behind them they are still together today.

Danny Pintauro now manages a restaurant in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Judith Light (Angela Bower) began her acting career on the stage and at first had no interest in working on a sitcom or soap opera. A lack of roles meant that she was on the verge of quitting acting entirely when she received a call from her agent for a spot on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live. Having auditioned as an understudy, she was eventually cast in a much bigger role. Realising that she could both “make a difference” and “make money”, she accepted the job. Her work there certainly did make a difference: a courtroom scene where she confesses her guilt is considered to be so well-executed that it is to this day used in acting classes.

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The character of Tony Micelli was number twenty-three in TV Guide’s list of “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time”.

Like her character Samantha, Alyssa Milano (Samantha Micelli) grew up in Brooklyn, but her family moved to Staten Island when she was young and Alyssa worked hard to lose her Brooklyn accent to acquire roles in the theater. By the time she won her part in Who’s The Boss? her old accent had disappeared so completely that she found it difficult to get it right for the show.

Who’s the Boss? has the distinction of premiering on the same night as The Cosby Show. And amazingly, it ended on the same very evening as the popular MacGyver and Growing Pains.

1,500 girls were auditioned to find the right actress for the part of Samantha Micelli.

Judith Light met her husband, fellow actor Robert Desiderio, on the show One Life to Live. They have been married for nearly 30 years and are still together today.

Alyssa Milano (Samantha Micelli) tried to get out of her contract after the end of season 7, wanting to focus on an academic career. She was refused and had to continue with the show.

Katherine Helmond and her husband are practising Buddhists.

Marilu Henner, who guest-starred on the show as neighbor Diane Wilmington, also co-starred with Tony Danza on the series Taxi. Henner was also Danza’s first “Hollywood girlfriend”.

Tony Danza and his son Marc published a cookbook together in 2008 called “Don’t Fill Up on the Antipasto: Tony Danza’s Father-Son Cookbook”.

Alyssa Milano kissed Ryan White, a boy with AIDS who had been ostracized because of his illness, on Phil Donahue’s talk show to prove that AIDS could not be caught by kissing.

In 1997 Danny Pintauro (Jonathan Bower) came out as a gay man.

In 1975, some of Tony Danza’s friends entered him into the “New York City Golden Gloves” tournament as a joke. The joke turned out to be on them, as he made it all the way to the finals before being knocked out. He later embarked on a professional boxing career, with a record of 9-3. All but one of his bouts, both wins and losses, ended with a knockout.

Judith Light is a passionate gay rights activist, as well as an AIDS activist. She has done a great deal of work for a number of LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender) charities and sits on the board of both the Matthew Shepard Foundation and the Point Foundation. She spoke at the 1993 March on Washington and played Ryan White’s mother in the movie The Ryan White Story. She also helped her young co-star of Who’s the Boss? Danny Pintauro, when he came out.

Tony Danza is an ordained Minister.

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For two years, Tony Danza had his own talk show, The Tony Danza Show. In one episode he and NASCAR great Rusty Wallace were having a go-kart race when Wallace’s kart bumped into him, flipping it over. Luckily, despite neither of them wearing helmets, they escaped without injury. A few months later another episode saw Danza and Indy Car driver Danica Patrick in another go-kart race which ended once again in Danza being involved in an accident. This time his brakes malfunctioned causing him to skid into a wall. As before, he escaped completely unscathed.

Katherine Helmond directed the television show Benson.

In 1993, Danza was skiing in Utah when he broke his back. As a result, screws, plates and rods were inserted permanently into his spine.

Alyssa Milano is a keen baseball fan and writes a regular blog on the Major League Baseball’s website. Her favorite team is the Los Angeles Dodgers and she has her own signature line of team apparel for female baseball fans called “Touch”.

Tony Danza has a metal rock band named after him. It’s called “The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza”.

For the movie Wit, Judith Light shaved her head to portray Vivian Bearing, a woman who is dying of ovarian cancer.