Alyssa Milano

SHE'S THE BOSS

     Who can forget Tony Danza's exclamation, "SAMANTA"—the one that signaled the entry of Alyssa Milano onto the set of Who's The Boss? Alyssa came straight outta Brooklyn and Staten Island onto the Great White Way when she was just eight—in the musical Annie, playing the role of "July." After just a few years on the stage, Alyssa scored her defining role as Samantha Micelli, daughter of an ex-major league ballplayer who drives his van up to Connecticut from Brooklyn to work as a housekeeper for high-strung executive Angela Bower. As the sexual tension between Angela and Tony grew, however, so did Samantha—in all the right places!
     During the Who's The Boss? years, we also got to see Alyssa as Schwarzenegger's daughter in 1985's Commando and in the legendary Teen Steam aerobics exercise video from 1988. Unbeknownst to most of the Who's The Boss? viewing audience, Alyssa had a lucrative side career going as a top recording artist—in Japan, spurred by that country's insatiable appetite for cute American teens. All you crate-diggers out there should look out for the LPs Do You See Me, The Best in The World, and the existentially-titled Trapped Inside a Dream.
     After Boss? ended, Alyssa started her journey towards her current status as one of the preeminent sex symbols in the world by portraying the "Long Island Lolita," Amy Fisher, in a 1993 television movie. The saga continued with the second installment in the B-movie dynasty that is Poison Ivy, in which Alyssa inherits the wild, seductive spirit of Ivy (played by Drew Barrymore in the original film) and leaves a trail of sexual devastation in her wake (below). A couple years after that, her stock rose somewhat with her stint on Melrose Place and her starring role in the acclaimed indie Huge Pool (above), directed by Robert Downey Sr. and featuring his son as an eccentric Dutch film director.
     The 2001 Alyssa continues to bewitch us as an enchantress on the WB series Charmed, along with Shannen Doherty and Holly Marie Combs. Having recently completed the Bill Bellamy (remember him?) romantic comedy Buying The Cow, Alyssa has mainly been relegated to the celebrity purgatory of "1-800-COLLECT" commercials. We don't really mind though, as long as we keep getting to see her in black leather.