Movies starring Alyssa Milano
Alyssa Milano is the daughter of Italian-American parents Lin, a fashion designer, and Tom, a film music editor. Alyssa was born in a working class neighborhood in Brooklyn and grew up in a modest house on Staten Island. One day, her babysitter, who was an aspiring dancer, dragged Alyssa along to a an open audtion for the first national tour of Annie. But it was Alyssa, not the sitter, who beat out 1,500 other wanna be stage actresses to snag a role. So at the tender age of seven, with her mother in tow, Alyssa joined the tour as July, one of the orphans. After 18 months on the road, Alyssa, w ...
show all Alyssa Milano is the daughter of Italian-American parents Lin, a fashion designer, and Tom, a film music editor. Alyssa was born in a working class neighborhood in Brooklyn and grew up in a modest house on Staten Island. One day, her babysitter, who was an aspiring dancer, dragged Alyssa along to a an open audtion for the first national tour of Annie. But it was Alyssa, not the sitter, who beat out 1,500 other wanna be stage actresses to snag a role. So at the tender age of seven, with her mother in tow, Alyssa joined the tour as July, one of the orphans. After 18 months on the road, Alyssa, who had begun to garner a reputation as an energetic and charismatic young actress, left Annie to be featured in off-Broadway productions and television commercials. Then, in 1983 at age 10, she landed her breakthrough role on the new sitcom "Who's the Boss?" (1984) as 'Tony Danza' (qv)'s saccharine sweet daughter, Samantha Micelli, a kid whose native Brooklyn accent rivaled her TV dad's. In order for Alyssa to accept the gig, the Milano family had to uproot and move 3,000 miles to Hollywood.
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There are more laughs than you might expect in this light-hearted vehicle for the normally dire David Spade. He plays Dickie Roberts, the washed-up former child star who, having missed his real-life childhood, is unable to generate the emotion necessary to clinch a possible movie comeback. To solve the problem, he moves in with an all-American family who, with grim Hollywood inevitability, at first resent his presence then warm to his oddball personality. The screenplay degenerates into schmaltz occasionally — and there’s a pseudo-Oedipal strand to the story that will strike some as subversive and others as plain weird — but Spade creates an unusual character who, despite being self-obsessed, is oddly vulnerable and likeable. If none of that appeals, you can always spend your time spotting the numerous cameo appearances by genuine former child stars (the end credits feature a fantastically gruesome massed choir of them).
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