While stars like Danielle Fishel and Alyssa Milano might get all the attention today for their 90s teen roles, they weren’t the only TV stars young boys dreamed about. Step by Step‘s Dana Foster, the very brainy and maybe even slightly intimidating older sister of the home, also caught the attention of most audiences. But why haven’t we seen much of Staci Keanan since then? Well, perhaps it’s because she seemed to have left Hollywood a long time ago.
Born Anastasia Sagorsky, Keanan started her acting career very young. But even before that, she was modeling at 4 years old. By 8, she was already balancing school life and her TV gigs. And just like her character in Step by Step, she managed the challenges just fine, getting top grades at school. With Dana Foster, she was clearly pulling from very real experience.
Between 1987 and 1998, Keanan was pretty much everywhere on TV. She starred in My Two Dads, Going Places, and then went on to Step by Step. For 7 seasons, we watched her give sarcastic one-liners and smart comebacks. Remember her eye rolls? Remember that cold stare? She was always ten times smarter than anyone else in the situation. Maybe even smarter than her parents on the show, who were played by Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers.
But then… like many childhood stars do… Staci Keanan left the business.
Not because of drama behind-the-scenes. Not because she couldn’t get work. She just walked away from Hollywood and decided to study law instead.
In 2013, Keanan passed the bar and graduated from Southwestern Law School in LA. Again, she proved that perhaps her smarts on Step by Step wasn’t just for the cameras.
Today, she works as a deputy district attorney and associate professor under her married name (she married actor Guy Birtwhistle): Stacy Birtwhistle.
It’s been 35 years since Staci Keanan played Dana Foster in Step by Step, but you wouldn’t say that looking at her today. She hit 50 last year, but still very much looks like the younger version of herself.
Of course, the nostalgia never really left, either. She recently opened up about a teenage romance with Married… with Children star David Faustino. “We were the same age, and I was in love with him,” she said on her podcast. “He was so cute and so funny—in real life, too.” It didn’t last forever, but she still calls it “a very sweet little romance.”
Fans loved the throwback, and one commented, “He was a lucky kid. She was beautiful—I had a crush on her when I was a kid.” Another added, “That’s not what you expect from Hollywood.”
If that wasn’t enough to give you nostalgia, in December 2024, Keanan reunited with co-stars Patrick Duffy and Christine Lakin for a cooking segment tied to her podcast. The photo hit social media and instantly triggered a wave of “I still watch this show” comments. Someone even wrote, “This photo made my heart so happy!”
Step by Step ran from 1991 to 1998 (remember that catchy theme song?), but clearly, it still has fans today. Dana Foster clearly left an impression on Staci Keanan. And we’re really not mad about that.
