January 3: Happy Birthday Danica McKellar

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https://lebeauleblog.com/2017/01/03/...j-r-r-tolkien/

For many people, Danica McKellar, who celebrates her 42nd today, will always be Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years, a character described by Jimmy Fallon as “the coolest girl in any TV show ever.” But she has done a few things since then, such as her TV roles in Lifetime’s Inspector Mom series, and Netflix’s Project Mc2, or graduating from UCLA with honors, earning a BS in Mathematics (and co-authoring an original mathematical theorem along the way). And then there are her four bestselling books, aimed at adolescent readers (especially girls), trying get them to love math, or at least not hate or fear it.🙂

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https://lebeauleblog.com/2021/01/03/...nica-mckellar/

Danica McKellar celebrates her 46th birthday today. McKellar grew up in Southern California, and began taking acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Institute when she was about seven. In 1985, she made her acting debut in a guest appearance on the mid-eighties revival of The Twilight Zone.

Three years later, McKellar began appearing in her most famous role. She starred on all six seasons of The Wonder Years as Gwendolyn “Winnie” Cooper. Her character was once labeled “the coolest girl in any TV show ever” by Jimmy Fallon.



McKellar never landed another role as high-profile as Winnie Cooper but she has worked steadily in the 25-plus years since The Wonder Years ended. During the 2000s, she appeared on season 4 of The West Wing in the recurring role of Elsie Snuffin, and starred on Inspector Mom, a Lifetime TV movie and follow-up series. More recently, she has voiced Miss Martian on Young Justice, and was a regular on Netflix’s Project Mc2.

McKellar has also a career as a mathematician and educator. She majored in mathematics at UCLA, and while there she co-authored an original math theorem. Beginning in 2008, with Math Doesn’t Suck, she began writing a series of books about math, aimed at adolescent readers, especially girls.

McKellar’s younger sister, Crystal, was also a child actress, who appeared as the recurring character of Becky Slater on The Wonder Years. Crystal McKellar went on to earn a law degree at Harvard.