1986-1991
An unlikely hit, this sitcom about a motley crew of precocious honors students and their prickly teacher made being smart cool. When the cast went on Oprah, recalls Dan Frischman, who played Class nerd Arvid Engen, "they screamed like we were the Beatles."
Dan Frischman
After cementing gawky Arvid Engen in the canon of lovable TV geeks, Frischman, 42, struggled hard to shed his pocket protector. Following a run on the stand-up comedy circuit, he spent four years on Nickelodeon's Kenan & Kel. These days, the single Frischman, who continues to act in Los Angeles, increasingly enjoys being recognized. "Now they say, 'You're an actor, ' " he says, "which I much prefer to 'Hey, you're that nerd!' "
Leslie Bega
For Bega, 31, who played Maria Borges, life after the show was tumultuous. Shortly after marrying INXS drummer Jon Farriss in 1992, she put her acting career on hold. Their divorce in 1998, coupled with the suicide of Bega's close friend and INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence the previous year, plunged her into depression. Counseling and yoga helped pull her out. Now an aspiring singer who runs her own production company, "I absolutely don't regret a thing," she says. "I'm much stronger, much more open."
Brian Robbins
As rebel Eric Mardian, Robbins, 37, injected Class with a dose of leather-jacketed sex appeal. But teen-idol status never clouded his real ambition: to work behind the camera. Married, with two sons, to Los Angeles publicist Laura Cathcart, 37, Robbins has directed teen flicks (Varsity Blues), produced the new television series Smallville and, with Class alum Dan Schneider, a string of such hit Nickelodeon shows as Kenan & Kel. "Brian gets what is funny to kids," says Nickelodeon exec Kevin Kay. "He's never lost that vision."
Tannis Vallely
She was just 13 when she left Class in 1989, but Vallely was ready to grow up. "I didn't want to be the baby anymore," says Vallely, 25, who played child savant Janice Lazarotto. "I wanted to be cool." After earning her degree in psychology from Stanford in 1997, Vallely found her niche working as a casting director in L.A., where she regularly encounters searching stares. "People will look at me," she says, "and be like, 'Did we go to camp together?' "
Robin Givens
Fueled by her vitriolic split from Mike Tyson during the show's run, Givens, 36, who played haughty Darlene Merriman, "was called America's most hated woman by the media," says Class co-creator Michael Elias. Recently, however, the twice-divorced Givens, who lives in L.A. with her sons Michael, 9, and William, 2, has won praise for her work in The Vagina Monologues. Says Elias: "She has created a life for herself."
Tony O'Dell
As a voice-over actor on the WB sitcom For Your Love, O'Dell is showing much more range than he ever did as cardboard-cutout Reaganite Alan Pinkard. The never-married O'Dell, 41, who lives in Burbank, provides a variety of offscreen voices—from airline pilots to wailing babies—and claims he doesn't miss his old gig a bit. "I just look back on that and say, 'That is so not me.' "
Kimberly Russell
Since playing spunky Sarah Nevins on Class, Russell, 30, has guest-starred on shows such as ER and Ellen. Now she and cinematographer Michael Bonewitz, 35, whom she wed last year, are expecting their first child in December. Although she has fond memories of her old show, Russell is less misty about her late-'80s fashion sense. "Sometimes I would have, like, 20 barrettes in my hair," she says. "It was hideous!"
Khrystyne Haje
When she signed on to play flame-haired poet Simone Foster, former teen model Haje knew it would give her career a major boost-but a date for the senior prom? "I took Tony [castmate O'Dell]," says Haje, 32. "We weren't dating but we were great friends. We didn't even have time to take our makeup off from the show." The perks didn't end there. Thanks to shrewd investment of her Class earnings, she is now quarter owner of a Silicon Valley company that boasts a net worth of $500 million. "I was really lucky and made a smart move," says the unattached Haje, who maintains residences in both New York City and Hollywood.
Since Class wrapped, she has dabbled in theater, film and TV, most notably as Kathy Larson on the Disney Channel's Stepsister from Planet Weird. "It's very funny," says Haje of seeing herself on Class reruns. "We've all evolved so much. But back then we were just these baby-cheeked kids."
Howard Hesseman
As the veteran actor in a cast of kids, Hesseman, who played teacher Charlie Moore, became something of a father figure to his young costars. After one emotional scene, recalls Frischman, "he came up to me and asked if I was okay, if I wanted to talk." Nowadays Hesseman, 61, who has acted continually in films and TV, divides his time between Hollywood and France with his wife, actress Caroline Ducrocq, 55. Says Frischman: "He seems to enjoy himself."
Dan Schneider
Always quick with a sarcastic quip as computer-whiz Dennis Blunden, Schneider (below) had a sensitive side in real life. When Vallely's on-set goldfish died, says Russell, "Dan got a new one and replaced it" without telling her. Now a successful producer of children's programming, Schneider also indulges in the occasional cameo. "There's still the ham in Dan," says Nickelodeon's Kay. "He loves to get out there and be funny."
A DIFFERENT WORLD
1987-1993
Like its mother series, The Cosby Show, World was originally conceived as an issue-free sitcom. But the show, set at fictional, historically black Hillman College, soon became more reality-driven, dealing with AIDS, racism, domestic violence and date rape. "You got the feeling," says executive producer Susan Fales-Hill, "you were doing something that had meaning."
Lisa Bonet
Though World was created as a spinoff for her Cosby Show character Denise Huxtable, Bonet eloped with rocker Lenny Kravitz after just one season and announced she was pregnant. She did not return to the show. Since then the ultraprivate Bonet, 33, has mostly avoided the limelight. Divorced from Kravitz in 1993, Bonet—who legally changed her name to Lilakoi Moon that same year—now lives in Topanga, Calif., with daughter Zoe, 12. Although she popped up in last year's High Fidelity, she spends her days running Venice Heart, a community outreach program for at-risk youths in Venice, Calif. Says costar Kadeem Hardison: "She's a great mom."
Marisa Tomei
As Hillman's only non-African-American student, Tomei's Maggie Lauten added a dose of diversity, but she got the boot after just one season. Recalls costar Kadeem Hardison: "She cried and cried when she found out." In 1993 Tomei had the last laugh, scoring a surprise Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in My Cousin Vinnie. Now single and living in Manhattan, Tomei, 36, continues to act and says she would like to start a family—but not right away. "I kind of trust," she told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette last year, "that it will come in the flow."
Dawnn Lewis
Singer-songwriter Dawnn Lewis didn't just play the part of 26-year-old Jaleesa Vinson on A Different World, she also wrote the show's theme song. After her five-year World stint, Lewis, 40, costarred on ABC's Hangin' with Mr. Cooper and in January released her first solo CD. Now living in Sherman Oaks, Calif., Lewis appears on Lifetime's Any Day Now. She says fans who recognize her are surprised by her youthfulness. On World, "everything I wore was blousy and full. I looked like my own mother!" she says. "People always think I should be older and bigger than I am."
Kadeem Hardison
During the show's run, Hardison, 36, received lots of gratitude. "I'd hear from black women, 'My boy got an A in math and wants to go to college after watching you,' " he says. Divorced from singer Chanté Moore (they have a daughter, Sophia, 5), Hardison harbors no regrets about his goofy role. "Dwayne Wayne has been marvelous to me," says Hardison, who lives in Topanga, Calif. "I've got a Dwayne Wayne car, a Dwayne Wayne house and a whole lot of fun stuff the show paid for."
Jasmine Guy
Guy had mixed feelings about playing Whitley Gilbert, World's pampered Southern belle. "She's not spoiled, she's not a snob," says producer Susan Fales-Hill. "She didn't want people to think, This is who I really am.' " And Guy, 39, has since done her best to break the Whitley mold. An Alvin Ailey-trained dancer, she played a vampy jailbird in Chicago on Broadway in 2000. Wed for three years to investment banker Terrence Duckette, 39, Guy, who continues to act, also keeps busy volunteering with A Place Called Home, a South Central Los Angeles community center, and raising daughter Imani, 2. Since becoming a parent, she told In Style last year, "I am happier and more focused."
BEVERLY HILLS, 90210
1990-2000
Executive producer Aaron Spelling had difficulty selling network suits on his series about teens in the country's hippest zip code. "Everybody said, 'It's not going to work. Who wants to see a show about kids?' " he recalls. Well, kids, for starters, who eagerly followed the gang on to college and beyond. "Some comedies were on for eight years in high school, and they never graduated," says Spelling. "They must have been so stupid."
Shannen Doherty
"I was not happy doing a soap opera," Doherty, 30, said of her four-year run as Brenda Walsh. Yet her life has rivaled the show's most outlandish plot twists. She was arrested for drunk driving last December and left The WB's Charmed in May after tensions with costar Alyssa Milano. It hasn't all been stormy: Kevin Smith, her director in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, calls her "incredibly warm and sweet." As Doherty, who is divorced from actor Ashley Hamilton and has been dating Charmed's Julian McMahon, said recently, "I'm sooo sick of defending myself."
Jason Priestley
Bolting the Hills of Beverly in 1998, Priestley—who played squeaky-clean Brandon Walsh—went on to helm a rockumentary about Canada's Barenaked Ladies and to star on the London stage in Side Man. Days after splitting from wife Ashlee Peterson (with her son Mackenzie, left) in 1999, he crashed his Porsche and later pleaded no contest to drunk driving. Priestley, 32, who lives in Manhattan and L.A., completed a three-month alcohol-counseling program.
Brian Austin Green
When we started the show, Jason [Priestley] and I were both taller than he was," says castmate Joe E. Tata of Green, who played geek-turned-hunk David Silver. "The third year he came back, all of a sudden he was 6'2". We were like, 'Who is this?' " Green, 28, is full of surprises: This summer he became engaged to castmate Vanessa Marcil and began playing a law student in the Showtime series Resurrection Blvd. "I am not trying to make anyone forget about 90210, because it is not going to happen," says Green, who has cropped his "corny" middle name to just its initial. "I worked before it, and I will work after it."
Gabrielle Carteris
"I lied about my age," admits Carteris, now 40, who was 29 when she landed the role of brainy high school sophomore Andrea Zuckerman. She left the series in 1995 and, after a short-lived talk show, began focusing on family life with stockbroker husband Charlie Isaacs, 42, and daughters Kelsey, 7, and Mollie, 2. "When I started out, someone said if you act, you can't have marriage and kids," says Carteris. "It's all about balance." Indeed she still juggles acting gigs with household work at her Sherman Oaks, Calif., abode. "She can make chicken more ways than I've ever seen," says pal Missy Halperin.
Tori Spelling
As TV's most famous virgin, Donna Martin, Spelling "had a cross and a half to carry because of Dad [executive producer Aaron Spelling]," says castmate Joe E. Tata. "She works her buns off." Spelling, 28, split with 90210's Vincent Young earlier this year and rebounded with a role in the spoof Scary Movie 2. "As much fun as people have made of me over the years," she recently said, "I still like to make fun of myself."
Luke Perry
"I wanted Luke Perry so badly," says Aaron Spelling. "The network wouldn't sign him. I said, 'If you don't have to pay for him, can I use him?' " So initially Spelling footed the bill for Perry, now 35, to play perpetual brooder Dylan McKay. After the series wrapped, Perry donned fishnet stockings to portray Brad Majors in Broadway's The Rocky Horror Show and wore a shaggy beard as a televangelist on HBO's Oz (he'll return for new episodes in January). "I retire after every job," says Perry, who lives in L.A. with wife Minnie, 32, and kids Jack, 4, and Sophie, 1. But "like Al Pacino in The Godfather, I keep coming back."
Ian Ziering
90210 "was an incredible break for me, and I didn't realize how big until it ended," Ziering, 37, said last year. As Steve Sanders he "provided comic relief by the ton," says Aaron Spelling. But Ziering, who lives in L.A. with his wife, former Playboy Playmate Nikki Schieler, 30, has put the jokes on hold for a dramatic turn next month on JAG. He is also looking forward to minireunions "in the gym for years to come."
Jennie Garth
Sometimes Garth feels like she's still playing material girl Kelly Taylor. During her January wedding to actor Peter Facinelli, 27 (their daughter Luca Bella, 4, was a flower girl)," I said...'This is just like an episode of 90210,' " she told In Style. After appearing in last year's quickly canceled The Street, Garth, 29, is plotting her next move at home in L.A., as she relives her 90210 days. "It's on 80 times a day on FX," she said recently. "I'll get sucked in and watch."
- Contributors:
- Vickie Bane,
- Karen Brailsford,
- Susan Christian Goulding,
- Mary Green,
- Maureen Harrington,
- Jenny Hontz,
- Valerie O'Barr,
- Cynthia Wang,
- Pamela Warrick,
- Peter Mikelbank,
- Ericka Sóuter.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
