WHERE ARE THEY NOW?: ATWT

Now here is an interesting trio... The year is 1984, the teenage ingenue is Marisa Tomei as shy, plain Jane Marcy Thompson (yes, boys and girls, in the world of soap operas, Marisa Tomei with her hair in her face is the equivalent of Betty the Ugly).

Marcy has just won a Cinderella Fantasy Contest, and her prize is a serenade by Jermaine Jackson (then on a Victory Tour with his brothers) and Jermaine's back-up singer, Whitney Houston, then still merely the clean-living cousin of pop legend Dione Warwick and goddaughter of Aretha Franklin.

So that was them in 1984. Where are they now?

Marisa won the Supporting Actress Oscar in 1993 for My Cousin Vinny and is currently appearing in Factotum.

Jermaine Jackson has been married three times and fathered eight children (including the fantastically monikered Jermajesty). He's changed his name to Muhammad Abdul Aziz and now lives in Dubai and Bahrain. His last album was You Said in 1991.

As for Whitney, The Independent said it best. Yes, We Have a Problem...

And to think, once they were just three little people passing through Oakdale, USA...