It’s all adding up for former child star McKellar

For years people would tap Danica McKellar on the shoulder and ask, “Aren’t you that little girl on ‘The Wonder Years?’”

Though she WAS that little girl on “The Wonder Years,” all that changed in an instant. After six seasons on the popular show as Winnie Cooper, McKellar was ready for college.

“I took four years off to attend UCLA,” she says. “My plan was to be a film major because I loved acting and had been doing it for so long, I thought I should learn the rest of it.

“And I took a math class as part of my general requirements. It was a calculus course which wasn’t really required, but I’d been in AP calculus in high school, and I was intimidated by the idea for some reason even though I’d done well in high school. I was buying into the stereotype,” she says, seated in a restaurant, the clatter of breakfast cutlery in the background.

“But I took the plunge and did it and fell completely in love with mathematics. I was floored at how well I was doing and couldn’t believe that I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it and was at the top of my class from the first test,” she says, ordering eggs without the hash-browns.

“And I really gained an identity for myself and self-worth that was completely separate from Hollywood, which was so important for me.”

She went on to earn the highest score in her class of 163 people on her mid-term. “The scores were on the board. The high score was 22, which was mine, the rest were 15 and below,” she says.

“This one day someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, aren’t you that girl who got the 22?’ It hit me. ‘Oh, my goodness. This is me. THIS is me, not a combination of sound effects and music and lighting and a great script and all the rest of it. This is really me. And it was intoxicating. I knew I needed to go down that path and take a break from Hollywood and find myself.”

She even managed a coup that rarely happens in the field of mathematics. She contributed to original research that proved a new theorem. “So I have a theorem named after me, which is something you usually do when you’re getting your Ph.D. After I got my bachelor’s of science, I missed acting and I missed communicating with people.”

While she enjoyed the research, she felt isolated, she says.

“I really missed acting. At that point I’d already joined the Shakespeare group on campus. I was doing plays and stuff and I really wanted to get back to it.”

It took her three years to land a part, a juicy role in “The West Wing,” but she’s definitely baaaaaack. McKellar, 41, is starring in her second Hallmark movie, “Wedding Bells,” part of the network’s June weddings series, premiering June 3. And, no, she doesn’t play the bride.

Though she’s been a bride twice (she and her first husband divorced when her 5 year-old son was 1 1/2) McKellar plays the maid of honor who colludes with the best man to save a wedding that is about to go under.

But McKellar hasn’t forgotten Pythagoras. In 2000 she addressed Congress about the importance of women in mathematics, and five years later she was approached about writing a book on the subject.

“I did a lot of research at the time and discovered that sixth grade — middle school — is the time when girls’ confidence in math starts to drop. That was the time when it needed to be targeted, so I thought, ‘Yes, I want to write a book for middle-school girls to show them that they are smart, capable, and they should strive to be these things through mathematics.” That’s how her first book, “Math Doesn’t Suck,” was born.

“I recommend to ANY actor: have something else that you also love that you also do that makes money. For me, it’s math books because it keeps you sane and keeps you from needing the next job to happen at a certain point. And you can choose; you don’t have to take everything that comes to you,” says McKellar, whose wearing a black-and-white print dress, a red shawl draped across her shoulders and red high-heeled pumps.

Two years ago she faced another arduous challenge. She appeared on “Dancing with the Stars,” breaking a rib in the process.

“It was pretty humiliating because I was sobbing, and that made it on national television. It’s one thing to cry as a character, it’s another one when it’s really me. I was embarrassed and didn’t want to be weak. Didn’t want to lose like that. I kept dancing for two more weeks after that,” she says.

She refused pain killers and tried all manner of holistic treatments. Sighing, she says, “It was very challenging because I was in physical pain. I was afraid. You get up there and are about to dance in front of 15 million people, and it’s live, and you don’t know if your rib’s going to stay with you. I was in so much pain. That was one of the hardest times in my life.”

The Highwaymen on the road again

PBS’ “American Masters” usually confines itself to one master per program. But on Friday it will feature four of them. Known as America’s first “supergroup,” the Highwaymen included country music greats Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. In Emmy-winner Jim Brown’s documentary we can see what all the shouting was about. Time is spent on the uniqueness of each individual and how they blended so perfectly together. The show displays vintage film, current interviews with folks who knew them and Nelson and Kristofferson themselves. Even if you don’t like country music, this is a fascinating study of those who do. As “American Masters” always does, it has awkwardly titled the show: “American Masters — The Highwaymen: Friends to the End.”

History goes barbaric

The History Channel is planning on doing what it does best: history, with its docu-drama series, “Barbarians Uprising.” The new series, which premieres on June 6, will tell the story of the triumphant Roman Empire from the Barbarians’ point of view. Anyone who was not a Roman citizen was considered a Barbarian, and the Romans ruled these outsiders with draconian zest. But freedom proved more precious and many of these mighty warriors rose up against the ruling power. Done in four parts, each one two hours long, “Barbarians Uprising” will reveal history from the alternative view.