Articles about Fred Savage
1) 08/07/89 - Fred's Not Your Next Door Kid
2) 02/xx/93 - Fred just a 'normal teenager'
3) 05/11/93 - "Wonder" Chronicle Comes of Age
4) 05/xx/93 - Fred's wonder years to come
5) 05/xx/93 - Not A Kid Anymore
6) 04/25/96 - A Savage Role - No One Would Tell
7) 05/xx/96 - Talking With...Fred Savage
8) 09/22/97 - Brush With Death for Fred Savage
9) 05/23/03 - From "Wonder Years" to seamy role
10) 08/23/04 - Fred and Jennifer's wedding portrait
11) 08/16/06 - Fred and Jennifer's birth of baby
12) 10/13/08 - Fred and Family
FS1) "Fred's Not Your Next Door Kid"
by Andrew L. Urban, Daily Telegraph, August 7, 1989
Only in some things is Fred Savage like the kid next door: for instance, in the way he begs his mom to let him have a slice of the Danish pastry.
"Can I? Just a little piece...please, Mom?"
The Savage home is in Tarzana, an outer suburb of Los Angeles, named after Edgar Rice Burrow's famous vine-swinging character Tarzan.
But this is not the real Savage family home: that's in Chicago, from where the giant ABC network has yanked young Fred (and his kid brother and older sister) to make him a star.
And that's where Fred differs from the average Tarzana kid or, for that matter, any average kid who turned 13 last month.
If he's not yet a star like Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman or Bette Midler, he is certainly getting to be a child star of some repute.
More than once during this otherwise relaxed Saturday morning interview, he sent reprimanding glances at his real estate dealing father Lou for what he clearly considered vaguely risky interjections.
Like when we talked about how his own growing up was duplicated through his character Kevin Arnold in the family sitcom The Wonder Years - and whether his first screen kiss was also his first real kiss, as Lou innocently believed.
Fred's silent, rebuking glance suggested the topic was not for public discussion, nor was he going to volunteer an answer to the question. It indicated not only his natural teenager's sensitivity to the subject as such but also his sensitivity to the media.
But then he's hardly new at it: he's been doing it for half his life. At five, he failed his first audition for a TV commercial. But the director liked him, and six months later called him back for another.
Fred failed this one too but his mother Joanna obviously wasn't easily deterred, and they tried again when the same director recalled him for the third audition.
His first lines were to prove ironically wrong: "Goodbye Fred, Hello Pacman ..." The Fred referred to here was actually the Fred Flintstone-named vitamins, competitor of the Pacman vitamin being advertised.
For the next two years it was very much "hello Fred" for American viewers, as he did commercial after commercial, voice over after voice over, seventy-something of them.
At the age of eight he got the crack at the big one, with a starring role in The Boy Who Could Fly. "The first day on location I was pretty overwhelmed," Fred recalls. "Big stage, lots of people everywhere. I got very excited. But at least I was used to the camera by then."
His acting attracted interest and he was next cast as the younger character in the age-swap movie Vice Versa.
Fred is clearly a level headed kid, enjoying what he is doing for now, but he is not sure if his life's career is in front of the camera. "I also have interets in law. Possibly as an entertainment lawyer, though, not a courtroom lawyer."
While Fred is no precocious brat - he's not a brat at all - he does have a certain maturity at times, especially in his observations about his own circumstances. "Acting? Well, I think everybody acts. Like at home, when someone's being sarcastic, they're acting. Or telling jokes. Parents reading to their kids...I do it it front of a camera. It's like pretending...and it's a lot easier when it's planned, as in a TV series."
But Fred is "constantly embarrassed" by his work. "I look at it and I groan...oh no, I didn't?! I always see better ways of doing things." When he first read a script of The Wonder Years for the audition, he thought it was very funny. So did the rest of the American TV industry, which has voted The Wonder Years a Best Comedy Emmy for two years in a row.
One of the writers, Matthew Carlson, also won a Humanitas Award for an episode dealing with kids' reactions to parents fighting. It's a show that has comedy, truth, nostalgia and fun value: Fred likes the fun best.
FS3) "Wonder Chronicle Comes Of Age"
by Ken Parish Perkins, The Dallas Morning News, May 11, 1993
TELEVISION
Standing near the punch bowl during a press foray in Los Angeles, I was surprised to feel a finger taping on my shoulder and find a kid asking if I'd pour him a refill "of that red stuff."
It was Fred Savage. He looked taller than I'd imagined. His cheeks seemed thinner, his hair shorter and better-groomed. And that boyish grin that belongs to Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years was more like a grown up smile.
He was wearing a shirt and tie and blazer that could have been called a suit had any of it matched, or even been close to the same texture.
The problem with seeing kid actors in person is that they don't look like kids, and they don't necessarily act like them.
Fred had just turned 16 like Kevin, had just earned his driver's license like Kevin, and was contemplating college like Kevin.
WONDER YEARS WEARS OFF
As he was talking about how complicated his life was becoming, what with all this adult stuff getting in his way, it dawned on me why his television show, once a terrifically written coming-of-age chronicle of the average suburban teen, was becoming trite and a bit bland and losing its audience.
In the past season, The Wonder Years had dropped out of the top 20 and was dangling in cancellation land. He knew it. I knew it. It was a matter of time before the network pulled the plug.
Our conversation was months ago, at the beginning of the season, and since then The Wonder Years has indeed bitten the dust. Its final episode, which promises to tie up loose ends by finally matching young Kevin Arnold and that voice of reason, will end Wednesday.
When I talked with Mr. Savage, he wasn't all that worried about the cancellation. They'd had a good run, and he figured that when the end came he would simply move on.
"I think the corner you box yourself into something with coming-of-age type stories is - What do you do when you come of age?," Mr. Savage said, gulping down that red stuff and glancing around the room.
What made Kevin Arnold wonder - looking at life as a confused kid with everything ahead of him - diminished as he approached his senior year in highschool. We may learn things for the rest of our lives, but the wonderment of it all is never more keen than during our preteen and early teen years, when nothing seems to make sense.
LIFE CHANGES
For Kevin - now a Junior and thinking about college and careers, why his relationship with his parents was changing, why he no longer feared his lazy, no-good brother but pitied him, why the word "virginity" seemed to have so much more meaning as he got older - life indeed became more complicated. And less cute. And less funny.
"I can relate to Kevin," Mr. Savage said. "I think one of the things that made The Wonder Years be on for so long and have such, you know, moving episodes and be such a powerful show is that Kevin, I think, everyone could relate to Kevin."
"He's the universal teen-ager, you know, from 10 to 16 years. I can definitely relate to everything he's gone through from his first kiss to getting his driver's license. You know, I've been there with him, and he's been there with me every step of the way."
"And I think a lot of - maybe all - the viewers, whether they are my age or, you know, adults looking back on that time - millions of times I've had adults come up to me and say, 'You know that episode where this happened, you know I went through the exact thing. That was me in that episode.'"
Executive producer Bob Brush saw the ending too, but would have liked to have squeezed in one more year. At least let Kevin graduate from highschool.
"I think that some of the audience erosion had to do with the new time slot and a slightly earlier slot last year," said Mr. Bush. "But, sure, the show had to change as Fred's character changed. He was entering the later phases of adolescence where life gets a little more serious, where actions have consequences."
The Wonder Years had the advantage and disadvantages of the times. Its story lines, centered on the events of the '60s, were poignant and colorful. Then they entered 1970 and '71, regarded as a less colorful time.
"We used that time to try and establish a personality for Kevin Arnold, a young-adult personality," said Mr. Brush, which meant less narration from actor Daniel Stern. "And that begins at 16 and 17. You begin to make choices. You begin to have to live up to those choices that you make."
Perhaps we didn't want Kevin to make choices. We didn't want him to grow up. He reached a period when life became more difficult, even painful.
The Wonder Years began as a story of a cute kid with big eyes looking out at the world and not having any understanding of it.
Now he's a young adult who, in character and out, is an adult in shirt and tie and sports coat, with thin cheeks and shorts, neat-looking hair.
The wonder now comes from a different place: inside. He's no longer a 12-year-old kid without the words to express what he feels. He speaks for himself.
Same with Fred Savage. He used Kevin as his personal primer of adolescence, do it this way or that way, show him what's right and wrong.
Now, like his television character, Fred Savage, is moving on and out on his own.
FS6) "A Savage Role"
by Ed Bark, The Dallas Morning News, April 25, 1996
Former Wonder Years star turns nasty in TV movie.
It's rush week at Stanford University and sophomore Fred Savage is chairing his frat house's annual membership drive. Twenty-six seniors will be vacationing soon, "so we gotta fill those spots," he says in the telephone interview. To that end, he'll bring in a hypnotist one night, a reggae band the next. After-dark basketball games also are scheduled as part of an all-consuming effort to "seduce freshmen."
"This is a very busy, hectic time for me," Mr. Savage says pleasantly.
Good for him. At age 19, he's matriculated into real life after five seasons as cuddly Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years. A May 6 NBC movie, No One Would Tell, will be his first on-screen role since Wonder Years left ABC in 1993. He's playing creepy high school wrestling star Bobby Tennyson, whose possessive, abusive relationship with classmate Stacy Collins (Candace Cameron of Full House) ends in a grisly murder. What would Winnie Cooper say?
"It's definitely a big departure from what most people think of me as," Mr. Savage says. "I hope that comes off in a good way. Not that I have any problem with the way I'm viewed, but I'm always anxious to add another dimension. You never want to do too much of the same thing."
Television's child stars quickly learn whether America will accommodate their growing plans. The usual tack is to take a deep breath and turn your image inside out. Ultra-wholesome Ricky Schroder of Silver Spoons became Rick when he tried to come of age in several rebellious teen roles. Neil Patrick Harris went from Doogie Howser to an arsonist in a TV movie.
Teen mag cover boy Jonathan Brandis of Sea Quest DSV recently grew facial hair - or perhaps had it applied - to play a "rich spoiled, wild and confused teen" in NBC's Her Last Chance. Kellie Martin, a sweetie in the Life Goes On and Christy series, was cast as a drug addict accused of killing him.
Tempestt Bledsoe of The Cosby Show is knee-deep in the dysfunctionals as the host of her own cheesy talk show. Jerry Mathers...well, he's still the Beaver, and nothing's going to change that.
Mr. Savage made No One Would Tell during his midterm break. It wasn't part of any grand plan. It just sort of came along. "My senior year in high school was my first full year in school since the second grade," he says. "Then I got to come to college after that. I just had a great freshman year. There are so many things that are revealed to you when you're a freshman in college.
"I did some acting up here in school, some play readings and things. But nothing really big. There was no real agenda in my mind. A lot of people asked me why I would want to take some time off from acting. But it was never even a decision. It was just a natural progression of things...It's been a great ride since The Wonder Years. I've gotten to do everything I wanted to do."
Mr. Savage intends to major in English because "I enjoy reading and writing so much." He planned to graduate from Stanford before rejoining the "entertainment business" as an actor, a writer or maybe a filmmaker. But No One Would Tell fit his schedule and satisfied an urge to "tackle something different." He hasn't seen the film yet, but his family has.
"My sister hated my character and my mom was scared of him, so I guess I did all right," he says. "Between the two of them and my father, that's the only audience I'm concerned about."
Mr. Savage also has a younger brother, Ben, who is starring in ABC's Boy Meets World sitcom. Ben broke into acting as a devil-child in the ABC miniseries Wild Palms before settling into the role as mischievous but good-hearted Cory Matthews. No One Would Tell will be Fred's first taste of savagery.
"As you grow older, there are going to be whole other types of roles out there for you," he says.
He perhaps is still too young to know that a clear majority of adult male roles in TV movies are bad guys who stalk, rape, drink, abuse and/or kill. Right now he's more concerned about the razzing he might take from classmates.
"I tried to keep it from the guys in the (fraternity) house, but they've all seen the ads for it," Mr. Savage says. "I can't escape. I don't know what they're going to do to me. I don't think I'll come back to school for a few days."
FS7) "Talking With...Fred Savage"
by F.X. Feeney, People, May 1996
WORKING HIS WAY THROUGH COLLEGE
The Wonder Years are over. Fred Savage, who, as prepubescent Kevin Arnold, agonized over his first kiss on the critically acclaimed ABC series (1988-93) about growing up in the '60s, is now 19, a sophomore at Stanford University and the star of No One Would Tell, a chilling NBC movie (Mon., May 6 at 9 p.m. ET). "To show people another dimension of myself," Savage says, he took off two weeks last January to take on the part of a volatile high school jock who physically abuses his girlfriend (Growing Pains alumna Candace Cameron).
Shedding his cute-kid image may be Savage's choice now, but it wasn't back in March 1993, when a former Wonder Years wardrobe assistant filed a sexual-harassment suit against him and Jason Hervey, who played Kevin's big brother Wayne. The suit was dropped nine months later. "It's over and done with, not even worth talking about," says Savage.
At Stanford, the part-time actor is a BMOC in the making. A double major in English and Communications, he is social chair of his fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. "I plan all the parties," he says, noting that he's not looking for a steady relationship. "I date girls," Savage told PEOPLE, "but it's not a driving force in my life right now."
Family matters more. Savage chose Stanford's Palo Alto campus over Ivy League schools back East to remain closer to his parents - Lew, a real estate executive, and Joanne, a homemaker - who live in Los Angeles with his brother Ben, 15, a star of ABC's Boy Meets World, and sister Kayla, 17, an L.A. stage actress.
After he earns his B.A., Savage plans to keep acting - and try his hand at directing, too. "My goal by graduation," he says, "is to have written a 15- or 20-minute short and then shoot that. Just a short," he emphasizes. "To see if I'm any good at it."
FS8) "Brush With Death For Fred Savage"
by Richard Johnson, The New York Post, September 22, 1997
Former Wonder Years child star Fred Savage nearly had a metal spike rammed through his brain while shooting his new comedy series, Working, on the set in Los Angeles.
Savage and actress Sandra Guibord, a guest cast member on the episode, were supposed to be having some fun during a scene in which the two roll around on top of an office desk. But while the scripted rough-housing was going on, the two suddenly rolled right onto an old-fashioned paper spindle similiar to the kind usually found at deli cash registers. But unlike most breakaway Hollywood props, the gleaming spike was the real thing, and suddenly the comedy turned bloody.
"Fred was impaled right at the base of his brain," said our witness. "It went right through Sandra's forearm and then into Fred. She got up very calmly and walked off the set, and they called the paramedics. They were so concerned about making it worse and having a lot of bleeding that they left the spike in her arm and removed it at the hospital just in case it had hit an artery or something."
Meanwhile, poor Fred was left feeling lucky that the deadly paper spike didn't puncture a part of his head that would have regressed him right back to his Wonder Years IQ.
"He was walking around the set holding paper towels to the back of his neck to help stop the bleeding," said our source.
In the show, which will begin airing Oct. 8 at 9:30 p.m., Savage plays an idealistic young college graduate who enters the cutthroat job world and, fittingly, tries not to fall in with corporate back-stabbers.
NBC spokesman Brian Robinette confirmed the mishap, but said Savage received only a pin-prick and shook it off like a man.
"It happened Aug. 29 during an episode that hasn't been scheduled for airing yet. Sandra was in a scene with Fred and accidentally rolled onto a spindle. It went through her arm but there were no nerves or arteries or tendons or anything like that damaged. She's fine and afterward flew off to be with her family."
As for Fred, he said, "Fred really wasn't hurt at all - maybe just a tiny scratch. It wasn't anything major and he finished filming the episode that day."
As Savage recently said in reference to college, but which is eerily applicable to the minefield of TV filming, "You get there really doe-eyed and realize that it's nothing like what you had expected. I went through a rude awakening during my first week!"
FS9) From "Wonder Years" to seamy role
from the San Francisco Chronicle
FS10) Fred Weds!
from 8/23/2004 People Magazine
08/16/2006.
FS12) Wonder Family
from 10/13/2008 People Magazine
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