Danica McKellar

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Danica McKellar

Danica McKellar at a book signing, October, 2007
Born Danica Mae McKellar
January 3, 1975 (1975-01-03) (age 33)
La Jolla, San Diego, California, U.S.A.
Official website
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Danica Mae McKellar (born January 3, 1975), is an American actress and mathematician. She is best known for her role as Winnie Cooper in the television show The Wonder Years, and now as author of the nationally bestselling book, "Math Doesn't Suck," which encourages and empowers middle-school girls with mathematics know-how.

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[edit] Early life

Born in La Jolla, San Diego, California, McKellar moved with her family to Los Angeles, when she was eight. McKellar and sister Crystal McKellar both maintained professional acting careers as kids, but with a strong emphasis on education as a priority. As a result, Crystal became a lawyer, and Danica majored in mathematics in college.

[edit] The Wonder Years

McKellar had a leading role in The Wonder Years, an Emmy Award winning American television Comedy-drama that ran for six seasons on ABC, from 1988 to 1993. The pilot aired on January 31, 1988 after ABC's coverage of Super Bowl XXII.

McKellar played Gwendolyn "Winnie" Cooper, Fred Savage's main love interest on the show. In an episode entitled "The Accident" and in the final episode, it is stated that every important event in Kevin's life somehow involved Winnie. She lives on the same block as Kevin. Their first kiss plays an important part of the pilot episode, as does her older brother's death while serving as a soldier in the Vietnam War. In one episode, her parents decide to get separated because of their grief over the death of their son. According to the epilogue in the final episode, Winnie studies art history in Paris. Kevin and Winnie write one letter to each other every week for eight years until her return. Despite their life-long romance, they never marry.

McKellar's first kiss was with Fred Savage in an episode of The Wonder Years. She later said, "My first kiss was a pretty nerve-wracking experience! But we never kissed off screen, and pretty quickly our feelings turned into brother/sister, and stayed that way."[1]

[edit] Adult roles

McKellar has admitted the transition from "child actor to adult actor was a little bumpy."[1] Since leaving The Wonder Years, McKellar has had several guest roles in television series (including one with former co-star Fred Savage on Working), and has written and directed two short films. She briefly returned to regular television with a recurring role in the 2002–03 season of The West Wing, portraying Elsie Snuffin the sister and assistant of Deputy White House Communications Director Will Bailey.

In June 2006, Lifetime Television announced that McKellar will star in a Lifetime movie and web-based series titled Inspector Mom about a mother who solves mysteries.[2] In an interview in the November 17, 2006, issue of TV Guide, McKellar said that two TV movies and ten webisodes of Inspector Mom were being produced.[3]

On the August 1, 2007 edition of the Don and Mike Show, a WJFK-FM radio program out of Washington, D.C., McKellar announced plans that the producers of How I Met Your Mother were planning to bring her back for a recurring role (she guest starred on the show in late 2005). She appeared in the October 8, 2007, episode titled "Third Wheel".

In 2008, she starred in Heatstroke, a Sci-Fi Network original movie about searching for alien life on earth.

[edit] College and mathematics advocacy

McKellar studied at UCLA, majoring in mathematics. While at UCLA, she became a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority. She graduated summa cum laude in 1998. As an undergraduate, she coauthored a scientific paper[4] with Professor Lincoln Chayes and fellow student Brandy Winn. [5][6] by mathematician Terence Tao, a former instructor of McKellar's, complimenting her book and explaining the theorem. Referring to the mathematical abilities of his coauthor students, Chayes was quoted in the New York Times[7] as saying, "I thought that the two were really, really first-rate."

As a result of her role in the publication, McKellar has an Erdős number of 4. Because she also has a Bacon number of 2 through her acting career, she is one of the few individuals with a finite Erdős–Bacon number; in her case, 6.

McKellar is the author of the book Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail (ISBN 1594630399), which encourages girls in middle school to enjoy and succeed at mathematics.[8] The book has been favorably reviewed by Tara C. Smith, the founder of Iowa Citizens for Science and a professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa.[9] In an interview with Smith, McKellar said that she wrote the book "to show girls that math is accessible and relevant, and even a little glamorous" and to counteract "damaging social messages telling young girls that math and science aren't for them".[10]

McKellar was named Person of the Week[11] on World News with Charles Gibson for the week ending August 10, 2007. The news segment highlighted her book Math Doesn't Suck and her efforts to help girls develop an interest in mathematics, especially during the middle school years.

McKellar has announced that her second book, Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who's Boss, will be released on August 5th, 2008.

[edit] Trivia

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

McKellar appeared in lingerie for a pictorial for the July 2005 edition of Stuff Magazine.[12] The magazine asked readers which '90s star they would most like to see in lingerie and McKellar was the reader's choice. "I'm guessing most people are going to be like, 'Oh, look, it's Winnie Cooper!'" McKellar said at the time. One reason McKellar made the shoot is that she hoped that after the pictures come out "people will start giving me grittier roles." [1]

An Australian hip-hop act, The Winnie Coopers, named themselves after her well known character from The Wonder Years.

McKellar has lent her voice to the character Jubilee for the video game X-Men Legends and Invisible Woman for the video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.

[edit] Acting credits

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Where are they now? - Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years
  2. ^ Winnie Cooper Goes Digital:McKellar to star in movies, webisodes for Lifetime (English). Zap2it. Retrieved on 2007-07-26.
  3. ^ Interviews & Features|TVGuide.com
  4. ^ Chayes, L., McKellar, D. & Winn, B. (1998) Percolation and Gibbs states multiplicity for ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller models on \mathbb{Z}^2. Journal of Physics A: Mathematics and General, 31, 9055-9063. Full text as PDF
  5. ^ [1]
  6. ^ Blog post
  7. ^ Kenneth Chang, "Between Series, an Actress Became a Superstar (in Math)," New York Times, July 19, 2005.
  8. ^ http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2007/Sep/hour2_092107.html
  9. ^ Smith, Tara (July 24, 2007). Aetiology:Danica McKellar's "Math Doesn't Suck". Aetiology. ScienceBlogs. Retrieved on 2007-07-26.
  10. ^ Smith, Tara (July 25, 2007). Interview with math whiz, author, and actress Danica McKellar. Aetiology. ScienceBlogs. Retrieved on 2007-07-26.
  11. ^ ABC News: Person of the Week: Danica McKellar. Retrieved on 2007-08-10.
  12. ^ http://www.stuffmagazine.com/cover_girls/girl.aspx?id=468

[edit] External links

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