Tony Danza
Perhaps best known for starring on some of television’s most beloved and long-running series, including Taxi (1978–1983) and Who’s the Boss (1984–1992), Tony Danza has also established himself as a stage and screen star, and he is indisputably one of America’s most iconic performers.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Danza received a wrestling scholarship to the University of Dubuque in Iowa, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history education. Discovered at a boxing gymnasium in New York, Danza was ultimately cast in the critically acclaimed ABC series Taxi, earning him a place in television history. He followed Taxi with a starring role in the classic ABC comedy series Who’s the Boss?, which ran for eight seasons.
Eventually Tony explored his love for the stage, and among his many stage credits is his exciting run on Broadway in Mel Brooks’s hit musical The Producers, playing Max Bialystock (2006–2007), and his reprise of the role in the Las Vegas production at Paris Las Vegas (2007). For his theatrical debut in Wrong Turn at Lungfish (1993), he earned an Outer Critic’s Circle Award nomination. Other stage credits include the critically acclaimed The Iceman Cometh, opposite Kevin Spacey, Arthur Miller’s Tony Award–winning play A View from the Bridge, and I Remember You.
Most recently, it was announced that the ABC television network and ABC Studio are developing a sitcom entitled The Guys, is being developed to be Tony Danza’s return to half hour multi-cam comedy. Tony is also developing a project that could mark his return to the stage: the much buzzed about musical adaptation of the 1992 Castle Rock hit comedy Honeymoon in Vegas. Tony’s next big-screen role will be playing Joseph Gordon Levitt’s father in Levitt’s much buzzed about directorial debut, entitled Don Jon’s Addiction. The film stars Levitt, Danza, Julianne Moore, and Scarlett Johansson, and will be released in 2013.
Among Tony’s previous television experience is his role as attorney Joe Celano on the CBS dramatic series Family Law (2000–2002), his Emmy-nominated performance on David E. Kelley’s award-winning series The Practice (1998), and ABC’s The Tony Danza Show, a talk show that was broadcast live in New York from 2004–2006. He also starred in and executive-produced the ABC comedy series Hudson Street, NBC’s The Tony Danza Show, hosted Saturday Night Live several times and hosted numerous award shows, including the 2001 Miss America Pageant and the 2003 People’s Choice Awards.
Amongst Tony’s big-screen credits are his roles in Walt Disney’s Angels in the Outfield, She’s Out of Control, The Hollywood Knights, and A Brooklyn State of Mind.
In 2009-2010, Tony took on his most challenging role yet—teaching tenth-grade English at Philadelphia’s Northeast High School. His amazing experience working as a real teacher was taped and aired on A&E last year in the form of the critically acclaimed seven-part documentary series, entitled Teach. In September 2012, Crown Publishers (a division of Random House) will publish Tony’s book about the experience, entitled I’d Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High.
In 2010, AARP The Magazine, the definitive voice for 50+ Americans and the world’s largest-circulation magazine with more than 35 million readers, presented Tony with their Inspire Award. The Inspire Awards pay tribute to extraordinary people who inspire others to action through their innovative thinking, passion and perseverance.
Tony currently lives in New York City.
“And whether or not the educators who are trying to raise up America's students can actually set and meet higher academic standards, our cultural values make their job next to impossible. It's so much easier for pundits and politicians to point out figures and blame the people who are in the trenches every day than it is to get in there with them, or even to find out what actually goes on in those trenches. It's so much easier for parents to blame teachers when their kids get in trouble than to do the heavy lifting required at home to keep kids on track. And it's so much easier for us as a nation to cross our fingers and hope that we'll "get lucky" with the innovative "solutions" being tested on America's schools today than it is for us to roll up our sleeves and invest our own time, talent, and money in the schools that are even now-- with or without us-- shaping our nation's future.”