Times Flies! See How The Years Have Treated 12 Famous Child Stars
Jan. 9 2017, Updated 4:24 p.m. ET
Not every young star is as recognizable as an adult — see who did and didn’t get better with age.
Not every young star is as recognizable as an adult — see who did and didn’t get better with age.
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Little Jeremy Miller played Ben Seaver on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains from 1985 to 1992.
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Today Miller still acts occasionally.
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Danica McKellar got her big break in 1988 at age 13 when she first appeared as the girl-next-door character Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years.
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Winnie’s all grown up! McKellar, who went on to get a math degree from UCLA, continues to act on television, and she’s written several New York Times bestselling books on math for middle school students.
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Josh Saviano played Paul Pfeiffer, little Kevin Arnold’s nerdy best friend during The Wonder Years’ five-year run on TV.
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Today Saviano, who graduated from Yale with a degree in political science in 1998 and Yeshiva's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 2003, is a lawyer in New York City.
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Home Improvement fans watched Taran Noah Smith played Mark Taylor from 1991 until the show ended in 1999.
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“I started Home Improvement when I was 7 and the show ended when I was 16,” Smith has said. “I never had the chance to decide what I wanted to do with my life. When I was 16, I knew that I didn't want to act anymore." He eventually found success in the vegan food market.
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Lindsay Lohan’s star quickly rose when she starred in the 1998 film The Parent Trap.
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Today Lohan is known more as a hard-partying wild child than a serious actress.
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Between 2000 and 2006 Erik Per Sullivan was known as Dewey, Malcolm’s younger brother on television’s Malcolm in the Middle.
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After Malcolm in the Middle ended, Sullivan continued with his education, eventually ending up at the University of Southern California.
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Fred Savage began playing adorable Kevin Arnold on ABC’s The Wonder Years when he was only 12 years old.
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Savage has continued dabbling in show business, most recently he voiced the character Noah on the Cartoon Network show Generator Rex.
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Daryl Sabara played Juni Cortez and Alexa Vega acted as Carmen Cortez, the children of secret agent parents, in the 2001 movie Spy Kids.
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Sabara has kept busy through the years doing television shows like Weeds and Ultimate Spider-Man while Vega has worked on everything from Royal Pains and MacheteKills to Nashville.
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Miley Cyrus role on Nickelodeon’s Hannah Montana brought her fame, but the star never felt fulfilled. "I worked for five years on something that was a character where I didn't really get to be completely the creative person that I wanted to be,” she reveals.
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Cyrus has traded in her reputation for wearing cute clothes and sporting big smiles for rocking risqué outfits and sticking out her tongue.
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Michael Fishman got a leg up in Hollywood after he met comedian Roseanne Barr at an audition and she recognized "his fearlessness and comedic timing." He went on to play D.J. Connor from 1988 through 1997.
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In the years since his steady gig on Roseanne, Fishman has done everything from set design and camera operating to producing.
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From 1990 to 1995, Jenna von Oÿ played the fast-talking next-door neighbor, Six LeMeure, on Blossom.
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Von Oÿ attended the University of Southern California and has appeared on television since Blossom went off the air, including roles on The Parkers, What’s With Andy? and even on a May 2014 episode of Celebrity Wife Swap.
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Lacey Chabert got her first break in a cough syrup commercial, but her star really started to rise as violin playing Claudia Salinger on Party of Five, which ran from 1994 through 2000.
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Chabert has had a long and steady career, acting in numerous television shows through the years. She even graced the cover of Maxim as their November 2013 cover girl.
