A generation of millennials will know Melissa Joan Hart from her iconic 1990s roles as the titular character in both Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Clarissa Explains it All. In the 2000s, she starred in the ABC Family sitcom Melissa & Joey and is still acting regularly today — her most recent roles include voicing Becca Chang in the Nickelodeon animated series The Casagrandes. She has also established herself as a director, taking the chair for episodes of shows such as Young Sheldon and iCarly. She has the distinction of being the first celebrity to win the $1 million jackpot for charity, achieved when she appeared on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune in 2021.
Hart started acting as a young child and had appeared in 25 TV commercials before she was five years old. She also began making bit-part appearances on television and even trained as a Broadway understudy in a major revival of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. In 1991, still aged just 15, she got her first major role: Clarissa in Clarissa Explains it All, a Nickelodeon comedy show for teens that brought her international fame and four Young Artist Awards. This success was surpassed by Sabrina the Teenage WItch, which ran for seven seasons and won Hart even more Young Artist Awards, Kid’s Choice Awards, and a Saturn Award nomination.
Having cemented her place in 1990s television history, Hart continued to take diverse roles throughout the 2000s and 2010s and remained hugely successful — she starred in 2007’s ABC Family TV movie Holiday in Handcuffs, which became the network’s highest-rated program ever, and also competed in the ninth season of Dancing with the Stars. Her record-breaking win on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune in the fall of 2021was yet another triumph.
