As Alyssa Milano came of age on Who’s the Boss?, her breakout role turned out to be a case of art imitating life.
Marking the ABC sitcom’s 40th anniversary, the former child star recently recalled how her preteen character Samantha Micelli was largely inspired by her own childhood, including when she “started developing breasts.”
“A lot of Sam was based on who I was as a kid, which was someone who loved sports, a tomboy, someone who loved her family, tough, scrappy, and everything that kind of went on in my adolescence,” she explained to People.
“Like, I remember when I started developing breasts, I walked in the next week and there was a script called ‘Sam’s First Bra,’” added Milano. “So it was like, everything that happened in my life, they wrote it in the show.”
Airing on Jan. 8, 1985, the Season 1 episode ‘Samantha’s Growing Up’ featured a 12-year-old Sam going through the aforementioned change, during which her dad Tony (Tony Danza) agrees to let his employer Angela (Judith Light) take her bra shopping.
Katherine Helmond, Alyssa Milano, Tony Danza, Judith Light and Danny Pintauro in Who’s the Boss? (1984-’92). (Columbia Pictures Television/Courtesy Everett Collection)
“No one else understands that experience but us. It was a really special cast,” said Milano of the ensemble, which also included Danny Pintauro and the late Katherine Helmond.
“When you’re on a show for eight years, in those formative years from 11 to 19 … what you saw on TV was our family unit,” she added. “We were a family, and I love them very much and they will always hold a really big place in forming who I am as a woman.”
Who’s the Boss? ran for eight seasons on ABC from 1984 to 1992. In 2022, a sequel series in development landed at Amazon Freevee, reuniting Milano and Danza.
