Penny Marshall


Carole Penny Marshall was an American actress, director, and producer. She came to notice in the 1970s for her role as Laverne DeFazio on the television sitcom Laverne & Shirley, receiving three nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy for her portrayal.
Marshall made her directorial debut with Jumpin' Jack Flash before directing Big, which became the first film directed by a woman to gross more than $100 million at the U.S. box office. Her subsequent directing credits included Awakenings, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, A League of Their Own, Renaissance Man, The Preacher's Wife and Riding in Cars with Boys. She also produced Cinderella Man and Bewitched, and directed episodes of the TV series According to Jim and United States of Tara.

Early life

Carole Penny Marshall was born in the Bronx, New York City, New York, on October 15, 1943, to Marjorie Irene, a tap dance teacher who ran the Marjorie Marshall Dance School, and Anthony "Tony" Masciarelli, later Anthony Wallace Marshall, a director of industrial films and later a producer. She was the sister of actor/director/TV producer Garry Marshall and Ronny Hallin, a television producer. Her birth name, Carole, was selected because her mother's favorite actress was Carole Lombard. Her middle name was selected because her older sister Ronny, wanting a horse in the Bronx, was saving her pennies; her mother chose the middle name in an attempt to console her.
Her father was of Italian descent, his family having come from Abruzzo, and her mother was of German, English, and Scottish descent; Marshall's father changed his last name from Masciarelli to Marshall before she was born. Religion played no role in the Marshall children's lives. Garry was christened Episcopalian, Ronny was Lutheran, and Penny was confirmed in a Congregational Church, because " sent us anyplace that had a hall where she could put on a recital. If she hadn't needed performance space, we wouldn't have bothered."
She grew up at 3235 Grand Concourse, the Bronx, in a building which was also the childhood home of Neil Simon, Paddy Chayefsky, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren. She began her career as a tap dancer at age three, and later taught tap at her mother's dance school. She graduated from Walton High School, a public girls' high school in New York and then went to University of New Mexico for 2 years where she studied math and psychology. While at UNM, Marshall became pregnant with daughter Tracy Reiner, and soon after married the father, Michael Henry, in 1963. The couple divorced three years later in 1966. During this period, Marshall worked various jobs to support herself, including working as a choreographer for the Albuquerque Civic Light Opera Association. In 1967, she moved to Los Angeles to join her older brother Garry, a writer whose credits at the time included TV's The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Career

Marshall first appeared on a television commercial for Head and Shoulders beautifying shampoo. She was hired to play a girl with stringy, unattractive hair, and Farrah Fawcett was hired to play a girl with thick, bouncy hair. As the crew was lighting the set, Marshall's stand-in wore a placard that read "Homely Girl" and Fawcett's stand-in wore a placard that said "Pretty Girl". Fawcett, sensing Marshall's insecurity about her looks, crossed out "Homely" on the Marshall stand-in placard and wrote "Plain". Marshall and Billie Hayes were the only actresses to audition for the role of Witchiepoo for H.R. Pufnstuf, produced by Sid and Marty Krofft. Marshall thought that she was not right for the part, and Hayes got the role.
In 1968 Marshall accepted an offer from her brother to appear in a movie he had written and was producing, called How Sweet It Is. She landed another small role in the film The Savage Seven, as well as a guest appearance on the hit television series That Girl, starring Marlo Thomas. Marshall was considered for the role of Gloria Bunker Stivic on All in the Family, but lost the part to Sally Struthers.
In 1970, Garry Marshall became the executive producer of the television series The Odd Couple. The following year, Marshall was added to the permanent cast to play a secretary, Myrna, and held the role for four years. In Marshall's final appearance on The Odd Couple, her character married her boyfriend, Sheldn, played by Rob Reiner, her real-life husband. The episode included Marshall's real-life siblings, Garry and Ronny, as Myrna's brother and sister.
While she was on The Odd Couple, Marshall played small roles in TV movies such as Evil Roy Slade, starring John Astin and Mickey Rooney ; The Crooked Hearts starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., in which she played a waitress; The Couple Takes a Wife, starring Bill Bixby; and Wacky Zoo of Morgan City. In 1974, James L. Brooks and Allan Burns cast Marshall as Janice Dreyfuss, sister-in-law to Paul Dreyfuss in the series Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers. It aired on CBS-TV Saturday nights beginning September 14, 1974. Despite good reviews and decent ratings, it was canceled mid-season. Brooks and Burns, along with studio head Grant Tinker, were so impressed with Marshall's comedic talent that the following season, they hired Marshall and actress Mary Kay Place to play Mary Richards' new neighbors on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Garry Marshall, creator and then part-time writer for Happy Days, cast Marshall and Cindy Williams to guest appear on an episode of the show. The installment, titled "A Date with Fonzie", aired on November 11, 1975 and introduced the characters Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney. In that episode, Laverne and Shirley were a pair of wisecracking brewery workers who were dates for Fonzie and Richie. The pair were such a hit with the studio audience that Garry Marshall decided to co-create and star them in a successful spinoff, Laverne & Shirley. The characters of Laverne and Shirley appeared in five more episodes of Happy Days. In 1982 at the beginning of Laverne & Shirleys eighth season, Williams left the show due to her pregnancy. Marshall continued with the show, but it was canceled after the season's final episode aired in May 1983.
In 1983, while still filming Laverne & Shirley, Marshall guest starred on Taxi in a cameo appearance as herself. In the Taxi episode "Louie Moves Uptown," Marshall is turned down for residency in a new high-rise condominium in Manhattan. The Laverne & Shirley episode "Lost in Spacesuits" is referred to in the scene.
Marshall lent her voice to Ms. Botz, a.k.a. Ms. Botzcowski, the "babysitter bandit," on the first produced episode of The Simpsons, making her the first official guest star to appear on the show, and played a cameo role as herself on the HBO series Entourage. She also made a cameo appearance alongside her brother Garry in the Disney Halloween-themed movie Hocus Pocus as husband and wife. She was reunited with her Laverne & Shirley co-star, Cindy Williams, on a November 2013 episode of Sam & Cat.

Directing career

At the encouragement of her brother, Marshall became interested in directing. While starring on Laverne and Shirley, she made her debut as a director and directed four episodes of that show as well as other TV assignments. In 1979, she directed several episodes of the short-lived sitcom Working Stiffs, starring Michael Keaton and James Belushi. She soon moved on to theatrical films, her first film being Jumpin' Jack Flash starring Whoopi Goldberg. She got this gig when the original director dropped out. She also gave her daughter Tracy and her brother Garry roles in the film.
Marshall directed several successful feature films from the mid-1980s onwards, including Big starring Tom Hanks, Awakenings starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, A League of Their Own with Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell, and The Preacher's Wife starring Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston. In 1991, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award.
In 2010–2011, Marshall directed two episodes of the Showtime series United States of Tara. In 2013, Women in Film and Video presented her with the Women of Vision Award. In 2014, Marshall announced she was developing a biopic on Effa Manley entitled Effa.

Personal life

While at college, Marshall met Michael Henry, a football player, and left to marry him in 1963, aged 20; they had one daughter named Tracy in 1964. The marriage lasted three years.
On April 10, 1971, Marshall married actor/director Rob Reiner, who later adopted Tracy. Her marriage to Reiner ended in 1981; the couple had five grandchildren together.
Marshall had a brief relationship with singer Art Garfunkel in the mid-1980s, and he credits her with helping him through his depression.
Marshall had an abortion after getting pregnant in 1983. In 2010, it was reported that Marshall had been diagnosed with lung cancer that had metastasized to her brain, but two years later she was 'fine now'. Following her recovery she published a memoir, My Mother Was Nuts.

Death

Marshall died in Los Angeles on December 17, 2018, at the age of 75. According to her death certificate, the causes were cardiopulmonary failure, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus type 1.
Following Marshall's death, her former husband Rob Reiner, broadcaster Dan Rather, former co-stars Ron Howard and Cindy Williams, and Major League Baseball all paid tribute to her on Twitter.
Marshall is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills. The 'L' from her Laverne character is emblazoned at the bottom of her headstone.

Filmography

Film

As actress

As director

As producer

Television

As actress

As director

Awards