Who played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years?

Danica McKellar played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years. She portrayed Gwendolyn “Winnie” Cooper, Kevin Arnold’s close friend and eventual love interest, throughout the ABC coming-of-age comedy-drama.

McKellar joined the series as a young teenager, appearing opposite Fred Savage, who played Kevin. The show followed their friendship and changing relationship against the backdrop of suburban American life from 1968 through 1973. Winnie was not simply a romantic character: the series also gave her storylines involving family loss, growing independence, school, and the pressures of adolescence.

The role became McKellar’s best-known early performance. The Wonder Years ran for six seasons, from 1988 to 1993, and helped make her a familiar television presence. A common mix-up is confusing the actress with Olivia d’Abo, who played Kevin’s older sister Karen Arnold, or Alley Mills, who played his mother Norma.

After the series, McKellar continued acting in television and voice roles and became widely known for writing mathematics books. She earned a mathematics degree from UCLA and coauthored research that led to the Chayes–McKellar–Winn theorem.