Lucky Tony Danza
If you're a kid from Brooklyn, making it to a stage on Broadway can be a very long journey indeed. Tony Danza has done just that. He talks about his trip with "CBS This Morning"'s Gayle King in our Sunday Profile:
Throughout the 1980s, Tony Danza was a TV sensation, starring in back-to-back hit sitcoms -- first "Taxi," then "Who's the Boss?"
But for Danza, his love has been singing and dancing -- even taking a spin as Max Bialystock on Broadway in "The Producers" in 2006. It earned him a coveted caricature at New York's legendary restaurant, Sardi's.
"I love being next to Sammy Davis Jr.," he laughed. "That is cool!"
Now, at 63, Danza's one of the stars of Broadway's new musical, "Honeymoon in Vegas." "It gives me a chance to sing and to dance and to act and to be a little nefarious and be funny, all in one part," he said.
It's based on the 1992 movie about a love triangle starring Nicolas Cage as Jack, Sarah Jessica Parker as his fiancée, and James Caan as Tommy Korman, a Vegas powerbroker.
On Broadway, Danza is in the role of Korman, who wants to win the heart of Jack's fiancée, Betsy.
Danza says he became sold on the project when he met with the composer: "He just showed me this little bit of a verse of a song called 'Out of the Sun,' which is one of my character's songs -- 'When we're young, we think that we're invincible.'"
Danza was born and raised Anthony Salvatore Iadanza in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Matty, was a sanitation worker, and his mother, Anne (a Sicilian immigrant), was a bookkeeper.
King asked, "Did you get into a lot of fights as a kid? Were you a bad kid?"
"No, I wasn't a bad kid. I was a good kid. But I had gotten in a lot of fights 'cause in the neighborhood I grew up in, that wasn't equated with bad behavior almost. I mean, we'd fought like it was another game. 'You wanna play stick ball today?' 'Nah, let's go fight.'"
His family moved to Long Island when Tony was 14. He performed in theater productions and went on to the University of Dubuque in Iowa, where he earned a degree in history.
He also married and had a son. He said he had Mark when he was 19 and a month: "He grew up great in spite of me!"
Still a fighter at heart, Tony turned to boxing, and with it came a new identity: "I had a manager who suggested that on the poster it would look better if it said, 'Tough Tony Danza,' instead of Tony Iadanza."
He hits the bags every day at a Manhattan fitness club.
In fact, Danza was discovered in 1977 while boxing at a gym in Brooklyn.
"A guy walks into the gym, he's a producer," Danza said. "Asked me if I ever thought about being on TV. I read for him."
"Had you thought about being on TV before that?"
"I think everyone thinks of being on TV to some degree," said Danza. "But I was gonna be champion of the world, you know? I really thought I had discovered what I was supposed to do."
Instead, he played an aspiring boxer on "Taxi."
"It was originally written for an Irish heavyweight, and then I got the part and they made it an Italian middleweight named Phil Banta. And the producer came down and said, 'Hey Tony, I'm gonna change the name from Phil Banta to Tony Banta.' And I thought, 'Hey, that's really nice that they're doing that for me.' And then I realized it was a reflection of my acting ability -- they were afraid I wouldn't answer to Phil!"
"Taxi" ran for five years. Afterwards, he played Tony Micelli in "Who's the Boss?" -- a housekeeper and single dad.
"Very different," said Danza, "and I really thought I could be funny doing it."
The show lasted eight years. But Danza's career has not always come easily.
"The first 13 years of my career, I get everything. I walk in, boom, they give it to me," he said. "The next 15 - 'What's your name?' You have those ups and down."
Danza remarried and has two daughters, Katie and Emily. That marriage also ended in divorce.
Danza said, "I'm really proud that you've never heard a thing about my kids, you know what I mean?"
Now, he says he enjoys his idea of the good life, especially in his beloved New York City.
"I have the perfect amount of fame in New York," he said. "Because there's only two times you want to be a celebrity, really, in the world: In a restaurant and a hospital. That's really it! Get a table, or a bed!"
For decades, Tony Danza has been entertaining us and, it turns out, that's really what he wanted all along.
"You used to want to be the champion of the world," said King. "Today, what's your dream for Tony Danza?"
"I've had 'em," he replied. "You know what this reminds me of? It's a great line in 'Taxi,' where Louie goes to see Zena when his girlfriend is getting married. He wants to tell her how he feels and he tells her, 'Happiness is hard to come by in this life and you've given me more than my share.' And I feel like I've certainly had more than my share. I mean, pretty lucky!"
For more info:
- "Honeymoon in Vegas" at the Nederlander Theatre, New York City
- Follow @HoneymoonBway on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube
- "Taxi" on cbs.com