Danza was born in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Anne Cammisa (1925–1993) and Matty Iadanza (1920–1983) His mother was a bookkeeper and his father worked as a waste collector in Brooklyn. Danza\'s father was of Italian ancestry and Danza\'s mother was an immigrant from the town of Campobello di Mazara in the Sicilian province of Trapani. He has a younger brother, Matty Jr. (born 1954), a Los Angeles restaurant owner. When Danza was 14, he and his family relocated to Malverne, New York, on Long Island. Danza attended Valley Stream North High School, graduating in 1969. In the first episode of his show Teach: Tony Danza, Danza describes himself as a "bad student" in high school. He earned a bachelor\'s degree in history in 1972 from the University of Dubuque, which he attended on a wrestling scholarship. In 1975, as a joke, Danza\'s friends entered him in the New York City Golden Gloves. After knocking out his first six opponents all in the first round, Danza was knocked out in the finals.\n', '

During his first year of college, he had the Robert Crumb "Keep on Truckin\'" character tattooed on his upper right arm. In a 1985 interview in Us Weekly magazine, Danza remarked, "I was playing pool with a guy who had all these tattoos, and I wanted to be friends." Danza also sports a "Keep Punching" boxing gloves tattoo on his right shoulder as well as "Tracy", his (former) wife\'s name, on his chest. In college, Danza met and married his first wife.\n', '

Danza was a professional boxer with a record of 9–3 (9 knockouts, 7 in the first round), with all but one of his fights, wins and losses, ending in a knockout. \n', '

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