I am an actress who is best known for playing the title roles in two successful television series, Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.
I was born in Smithtown, New York, on Long Island, to Paula and William Hart, and grew up in Sayville, New York. My stepfather is television executive Leslie Gilliams. I was named after the Allman Brothers song "Melissa", while my middle name, Joan, came from my maternal grandmother. I chose Catherine as my confirmation name when I was in eighth grade, resulting in my full name: Melissa Joan Catherine Hart.
I have three sisters, three half-sisters and one brother, all younger than me. My oldest sister, Trisha Hart, has worked as a producer. Sisters Elizabeth and Emily, brother Brian, and half-sister Alexandra Hart-Gilliams have all acted. My two youngest half-sisters are not in show business.
My career began early on. When I was still a baby, I made my first television commercial for a bathtub toy called Splashy. From then on, I appeared regularly in commercials, making 25 of them before the age of five. Other early television work included a small role in the miniseries Kane & Abel in 1985, a guest-starring role in an episode of The Equalizer in 1986, and a starring role alongside Katherine Helmond in the Emmy Award-winning TV movie Christmas Snow, also in 1986.
In 1989, I auditioned for a Broadway production of The Crucible starring Martin Sheen, becoming an understudy to three of the young girls in the play. This paved the way for me to land the title role in the TV show Clarissa Explains It All. The Nickelodeon series, a comedy about a teen girl in everyday situations, became a big hit during its four-year run. The show made me a household name among American teenagers and got me four consecutive Young Artist Award nominations, of which I won three.
I also recorded two albums as Clarissa, This is What 'Na Na' Means and a recording of Peter and the Wolf (Sony Classical SK 64079). The former, a rock/pop album in the style of a garage band, was mostly a novelty product and did not receive much attention from critics or the public. The latter album won a Parents' Choice award.
After the television series was canceled, I attended New York University. I did not complete her degree, however, since she soon resumed her acting career when she got the lead role for the 1995 TV movie Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. This was followed by the television series of the same name which lasted seven seasons. In between, I also guest-starred on the series Touched by an Angel and starred in several TV movies.
In 1998, I landed a small part in the movie Can't Hardly Wait, and then started filming Next to You, starring alongside Adrian Grenier. I asked friend Britney Spears to do a remix of her song "(You Drive Me) Crazy" and add it to the movie's soundtrack. To capitalize on the song's success as a top-ten hit, the title of the movie was changed to Drive Me Crazy and I appeared in the music video. The movie, however, was only moderately successful. I have appeared in several other films, but none of them have received much recognition.
In 2005, I directed my first movie, a 15-minute live-action short called Mute, starring my sister Emily. I had already gained experience directing several episodes of her Sabrina the Teenage Witch television series.
I appeared in lingerie in a series of photos featured in the October 1999 issue of the men's magazine Maxim, as well as in similarly revealing pictorials in Bikini and Movieline magazines around the same time. This caused problems for both me and ABC (the network broadcasting Sabrina the Teenage Witch at the time) since the copyright holder of the Sabrina franchise, Archie Comics, regarded the series as a show for children and pre-teens, and believed that the Maxim photos and the accompanying article hurt the show's wholesome image (I also discussed my sex life and alluded to a Sabrina drinking game that could be played while watching the show). The chairman and co-publisher of Archie Comics, Michael Silberkleit, demanded that I either apologize or be fired from the series. I neither apologized nor was fired.
On July 19, 2003, I married musician Mark Wilkerson, a member of the band Course of Nature. The preparations for the ceremony, which took place in Florence, Italy, were documented in a TV miniseries titled Tying the Knot, produced by my production company, Heartbreak Films.
I gave birth to a baby boy, Mason Walter Wilkerson, at 4:19 p.m. on January 11, 2006.
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