Michael Murphy was born in Los Angeles, California, to Georgia Arlyn (née Money), a teacher, and Bearl Branton Murphy, a salesman. After a hitch in the Marine Corps, Murphy attended the University of Arizona, Tuscon, and then went to U.C.L.A. to get his teaching credential. From 1962 to 1964, he taught high school English and drama in Los Angeles.
Alley Mills was born on May 9, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois. A graduate of Yale in 1973, she studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. While still in college, Alley Mills scored a small role in the film Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970). She got her first lead role in 1979 in a short-lived television series about young lawyers entitled The Associates (1979), opposite a then yet-unknown Martin Short. After another failed sitcom in 1982, she finally caught a big break with a lead role in the critically acclaimed nostalgic 1960s-set family dramedy The Wonder Years (1988) playing matriarch Norma Arnold.
