from People, found April 2001
Paul Pfeiffer
At age 10, recalls Josh Saviano, "I was all eyes and nose, about 5'1" and
so skinny I was blown backward when I walked into the wind. I was just
a frail little boy with a lot of personality." The Wonder Years creators
wanted Kevin Arnold's nerdy best friend to be asthmatic too. "They kept
asking me to wheeze, and I couldn't do it," says Saviano, 24. "But I used
to pretend I was sick when I didn't want to go to school and had a good
fake sneeze down. When I did it, they went, 'That's it! That's it!' They
loved the sneeze." Once cast, Saviano and costar Fred Savage were inseparable.
"Josh is much cooler than people gave him credit for," says Savage. The
boys shared a passion for Nintendo and baseball cards. "Fred went on The
Tonight Show and announced he was a collector," says Saviano. "People started
mailing him cards, so he totally beat me."
Saviano can claim the most original rumor, though. While at Yale, where
he earned a degree in political science in 1998, the Internet began buzzing
that he was shock rocker Marilyn Manson. "I'd get 20 e-mails a week, and
it still hasn't died!" says Saviano, who is a consultant at an Internet
firm until he starts law school, probably in the fall. Although his family
and friends, including girlfriend Jennifer, 28, an attorney, know the truth,
Saviano isn't concerned about setting cyberspace straight. "What would
you rather have, people thinking you're a dorky kid from The Wonder Years
or a satanic rock star? It's way cooler for me."
Back to Josh Saviano's biography