Antonio Salvatore Iadanza (Tony Danza) was born in 1951 in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Anne Cammisa and Matty Anthony Iadanza. His mother was a bookkeeper and his father worked as a waste collector in Brooklyn. Danza’s father was of Italian ancestry and Danza’s mother was an immigrant from the town of Campobello di Mazara in the Sicilian province of Trapani. Danza attended Malverne Senior High School, graduating in 1968. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1972 from the University of Dubuque, which he attended on a wrestling scholarship.
Danza was a professional boxer with a record of 9–3 (9 knockouts, 7 in the first round), with all but one of his fights, wins and losses, ending in a knockout, including three technical knockouts.
Shortly after his college graduation from the University of Dubuque, Danza was discovered by a producer at a boxing gymnasium in New York. He then earned a spot on the television show Taxi, playing a cab driver and part-time boxer Tony Banta, and later starred on Who’s the Boss?, in which he portrayed a former baseball player, housekeeper, and single father Tony Micelli. For his contribution to the television industry, in 1988, Danza was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Danza also plays the role of a baseball player in Angels in the Outfield (1994).
Danza also starred in the short-lived sitcoms Hudson Street (1995) and The Tony Danza Show (1997), not to be confused with his 2004–2006 talk show, The Tony Danza Show. He had a role in the TV drama Family Law from 2000 until 2002.
He was nominated for an Emmy Award for a guest-starring 1998 role in the TV series The Practice. His movie debut was in the comedy The Hollywood Knights (1980), which was followed by Going Ape! (1981). He received critical acclaim for his performance in the 1999 Broadway revival of the Eugene O’Neill play The Iceman Cometh. In 2002, Danza released his debut album The House I Live In as a 1950s-style crooner.
He starred on Broadway as Max Bialystock in The Producers, from December 19, 2006, to March 11, 2007, and reprised his role at the Paris Las Vegas from August 13, 2007, to February 9, 2008.
In 2008, Danza and his son Marc published a cookbook, “Don’t Fill Up on the Antipasto: Tony Danza’s Father-Son Cookbook.”
Source: Wiki