TV Guide
April 28, 1990, p. 19-22.

She loves nighttime soaps, and still has an 'A' average

By Bill O'Hallaren

Those who work with Danica McKellar-Winnie Cooper on ABC's The Wonder Years-consider her a pretty, polite, hard-working little enigma. "We don't
really know what she's like deep inside," says executive producer Bob Brush. "She is so shy and tries to keep her personal life separate from her job. I suspect there's an impish streak, but I haven't been able to prove it."

Brush, who definitely does have an impish streak, attempted to confirm his suspicions about Danica on one of the last season's final days of shooting. During a break on the set, he casually informed her that Winnie's summer adventure would include aquiring a tattoo. But Danica retained her calm exterior, "I didn't get any rise from her," he says. "She just said, 'Oh'."

Her response is an indication of exactly why Danica, 15, would seem the perfect choice to play Winnie, a character whose personality very closely mirrors her own. But Danica disagrees.

"I'm not Winnie," she says. "Winnie is perfect. She has no faults. And she does what the script says."

Danica, her sister Crystal and their mother, Mahaila McKellar, are joined by an interviewer for high tea at the Century plaza Hotel. The two girls sit ramrod straight on huge chairs, making dutiful and cautious conversation, which their mother carefully records.

Danica won the role of Winnie at the last minute of the casting process because a lot of far more experienced young actresses came up short. According to Mary Buck, who, with her partner, Susan Edelman, cast the entire first season of The Wonder Years and won the Artios Award from the Casting Society of America for the series' pilot, filling the Winnie role was a bit nightmarish.

"We looked at many, many girls, and most were too show-bizzy," she says. "These kids came bumping-bumping in with their shtick-it would almost break your heart. They are under such incredible pressure because they are the income for their families. And some of the mothers, well, how about 'outrageous'? I want to keep it polite." Buck threatons to write a book someday about the mothers of child actors, "and it won't be nice."

Nearing deadline, Buck "put in calls to agents and told them to send me real kids." Recalls Danica's mother: "We came in Thursday, we were called back Friday and didn't get to read with Fred (Savage, who plays Kevin Arnold) until after his dinner Friday." Production was to begin the next Monday.

When the choices were narrowed down to Danica and another girl, Neal Marlens and Carol Black, the series' creators, agonized over the two. "It was practically a tossup," says Buck. "But finally they picked Danica." The loser was Danica's 13-year-old sister, Crystal.

"Neal and Carol and I spent a half hour consoling Crystal and telling her how good she is and that the next half-hour congratulating Danica." What was it about Danica that tipped the scale in her favor? Buck chuckes, "Danica is a little taller and das a darker complexion, more like Fred's." Danica's win was not a complete loss for Crystal, however. Appropriately enough, she herself has appeared several times on the show as Becky, Winnie's rival.

Isn't it hard to compete against your sister for a role "We don't compete," says Danica firmly. "We each give a performance and do the best we can, and it's up to the producers." Crystal agrees but admits she was disappointed in not becoming Winnie and hopes there will be a series for her soon. "We both go on a lot of interviews."

While Crystal is outgoing, Danica seems to dwell in a private world. "She's internal," says Buck. When Crystal eagerly recounts details of little Jessica McClures now-famous ordel in a well subsequent recue, Danica naively asks, "Did she live?"

Queried about her favorite TV programs, Danica says that, in addition to her own, she likes ABC's Doogie Howser, M.D., which stars her friend Neil Patrick Harris, and the same network's Growing Pains, which features another good friend, Jeremy Miller. There are giggles with the revelation that she and her sister wallow in the nighttime soaps, the steamier and raunchier the better. "Then the three of us sit there and rehash them," adds Mahaila.

If the two girls easily master high tea in haughty surroundings, it's because according to their mother, "They've been taught to appreciate nice things." Mahaila's parents were of Portuguese descent, and "my father was very Old World, very insistent on manners." The girls' father, Chris McKellar, from whom Mahaila is now divorced, is a real-estate developer in Southern California and related to the prominent Scripps publishing family.

Mahaila, a dancer before her marriage, moved to Los Angeles in 1982 before the divorce was finalized, where her daughters continued to take dancing and acting lessons. Danica landed her first commercial at 9 and appeared on a couple episodes of the revived Twilight Zone but, according to Buck, "hadn't really done much before The Wonder Years."

The sisters are closely guarded. Their mother won't reveal the location of their home or the name of their private school. On their weekend trips to visit their father, they always travel with a chaperone.

The acting demands on The Wonder Years are made as easy as possible for Danica and the other young actors. The show is done with one camera, on film without a studio audience. Says Brush, "Danica and the others know that if they blow a line there's plenty of time to do it again and no pressure." He adds, "I've also found if Danica has trouble with a line it's almost always the line that needs changing."

In the show's early stages, Winnie couldn't decide how she felt about classmate Kevin, and she was too timid and confused to press his case. But this season she's decided Kevin is her real love. One episode had the two paired for a making-out session at a school party-from which she eventually fled. Before the evening ended, however, Kevin and Winnie sealed their new relationship with a kiss, and for many viewers it was a lovely, misty-eyed moment. Some of next season's shows will explore the ups and downs of their new teenage romance.

The schoolyard crush has been proved strongly evocative. In fact, for a while, most of Danica's fan mail came from adults-mostly men, who wrote because she recalled some long-past unattainable girl. Mother carefully screens the mail for her daughter, although "most of the letters were nice, from men who were in junior high in the years covered by the show. But others...well, every so often a letter comes in from someone pretending to be 10 or 11, but I know it's from a grown man. Especially if they ask for her measurements and a picture of her in a bikini.

Danica, meanwhile, seems oblivious. Maintaining an A average and moving gracefully from school to set to auditions, she never seems to lose her cool. A recent interview had to be postponed till late evening because of a last-minute call for a possible TV-movie. After the interview she announced that she was going to her room to study. A day of filming, a high-tension studio call, all the other edgy bustle, and she can still study? "Of course. There's school tomorrow." As for auditions, "They're important, but if I don't get the job, the family won't suffer. We'll still eat."

PHOTO: (Danica McKellar with straw hat)

PHOTO: (Danica McKellar with stuffed rabbit)

PHOTO: (video capture)
 

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