Alyssa Milano

While many TV series kids tend to be forgotten, their show biz careers over when they reach adulthood, Alyssa Milano was determined to make the leap. Known for her eight years as Samantha Micelli, tomboy-then-young-beauty daughter of Tony Danza on "Who's the Boss?" (ABC, 1984-92), she had been acting since she was seven and went on tour as one of the orphans in the musical "Annie." After additional stage roles and one small feature part (Marisa Silver's "Old Enough," 1984) Milano won the part on the sitcom. She worked in TV-movies during her hiatus (the syndicated "The Canterville Ghost," 1986; NBC's "Crash Course" and "Dance Till Dawn," both 1988), and won notice for her turn as Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter in the feature "Commando" (1985). Milano also released an exercise video for teens and three music albums in Japan.

After the retirement of "Who's the Boss?," however, Milano could barely get an interview for an acting job. Short, but a pistol of energy and with a penchant for changing her hairstyle frequently, she played leads in forgettable efforts such as "Where the Day Takes You" and "Little Sister" (both 1992) and "Double Dragon" (1993), in which she was a teen vigilante leader with a severe platinum haircut. Then, in 1993, she was chosen to play Amy Fisher, the sexpot teen in the CBS TV-movie "Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story." Milano's was the naughtiest, meanest Amy in that year's triple-header Fisher-fest. Playing a very visibly sexually-charged role on network TV shattered the Sam Micelli image. Milano followed by posing nude for a magazine spread, partly covered with mud.

From then on, the offers increased, although the quality of the scripts varied. She had roles in several TV-movies: the title role in "The Surrogate" (ABC, 1995), supported Ma Barker's gang in "Public Enemy No. 1" (HBO, 1996), was marooned up north in "To Brave Alaska" (ABC, 1996) and was menaced in "Deadly Sins" (HBO, 1996). In 1997, she took a leaf from Heather Locklear's book and joined the cast of the popular primetime soap "Melrose Place" (Fox), as Jennifer, the scheming sister of Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro).

Milano appeared in three 1995 direct-to-video releases, "Embrace of the Vampire," "Glory Daze" and "Poison Ivy II: Lily". She finally earned decent notices for her turn as yet another sexy teen, the best friend of Reese Witherspoon, in the well-received thriller "Fear" (1996). She landed the title role in Robert Downey Sr.'s "Hugo Pool" (1997), an uneven comedy about a pool cleaner who embarks on a road trip that leads to a series of encounters with a film director (Robert Downey Jr), a local politician who moonlights as a gangster (Richard Lewis) and a young man suffering with Lou Gehrig's disease (Patrick Dempsey).

Milano's adult success was firmly cementred when she signed on to another Aaron Spelling venture, the WB series "Charmed" (1998- ), playing Phoebe Halliwell, one of a trio of twentysomething sisters that discover their family tradition of witchcraft. While relationships were harmonious on-screen, things were not so convivial behind the scenes and original star and notorious Hollywood bad girl Shannen Doherty soon departed the series after reports of clashes with Milano and the production team. Often toiling in low-level indie features, Milano's next big on-screen appearance was as a sexy hitchhiker in the David Spade comedy "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star" (2003).

Milano also had a major impact on the way celebrities protect their images on the emerging Internet medium. After her mother Lin found still captures of movie scenes in which Milano appeared nude--as well as many faked images--the actress and her family became vocal crusaders aginst celebrity copyright enfringement, using the proceeds from her legal victories to launch a family-friendly web entertainment seach engine, safesearching.com.