http://m.tmz.com/2018/12/18/penny-marshall-dead-dies-75/

She died yesterday of complications from diabetes

RIP Laverne! :(

I am in utter shock.

So sad. I just read this. :(

Tried to post this and had a darn power glitch.

:rip: Penny

Count me in on the shock.

All I have to say about this is nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

RIP :(

*raises a glass of milk and Pepsi in her honor*

Link (https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-penny-marshall-dies-at-75-story.html)

Penny Marshall, who costarred as a Milwaukee brewery worker in the top-rated 1970s and ’80s sitcom “Laverne & Shirley” before becoming a director of hit movies such as “Big” and “A League of Their Own,” has died. She was 75.

Marshall died peacefully on Monday night in her Hollywood Hills home due to complications from diabetes, Michelle Bega, a spokeswoman for Marshall’s family, told The Times on Tuesday.

“Our family is heartbroken over the passing of Penny Marshall,” the Marshall family said in a statement.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight! Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated,” Marshall and costar Cindy Williams famously chanted as they skipped down the sidewalk in the opening sequence of “Laverne & Shirley.”

A spinoff of “Happy Days,” “Laverne & Shirley” starred Marshall as the feisty Laverne De Fazio and Williams as the idealistic Shirley Feeney, two 1950s working-class roommates who worked on the assembly line at the Shotz Brewery in Milwaukee.

The midseason replacement was launched on ABC in January 1976 and soared to the top of the ratings. Known for its broad physical comedy, it was the No. 1-rated show for the 1977 and ’78 seasons and aired until 1983.

“There were no blue-collar girls on television” when “Laverne & Shirley” debuted, executive producer Garry Marshall, Penny’s brother, once said in an interview for the Archive of American Television. (Garry Marshall died in 2016.)

Viewers, he said, “were dying for somebody that didn’t look like Mary Tyler Moore or all the pretty girls on TV. They wanted somebody who looked like a regular person. And my sister looks like a regular person — talks like a regular person — and Cindy Williams was brilliant as Shirley.”

With her deadpan demeanor and flat-toned Bronx accent that a TV Guide writer once described as sounding like “a groan filtered through a whine,” Marshall had been making minor inroads in Hollywood for several years before the Laverne and Shirley characters debuted as Richie and Fonzie’s double dates on an episode of “Happy Days” in 1975.

That included being a semi-regular on “The Odd Couple” as Oscar Madison’s secretary and a regular on the short-lived “Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers.”

Marshall’s career received big boosts from brother Garry, who had been an executive producer on “The Odd Couple.” He also created “Happy Days” and co-created “Laverne & Shirley.”

“I’m sure people thought I got parts because my brother was being nice, and at first I probably thought the same thing,” Penny Marshall told The Times in 1988. “But my brother finally told me, ‘I’m not giving you a job ’cause I’m nice. I’m not that nice.’“

At the time “Laverne & Shirley” debuted, Marshall was married to Rob Reiner, who had gained fame on “All in the Family” playing Archie Bunker’s liberal son-in-law. They later divorced.

Marshall’s work on her hit series drew the admiration of her then-father-in-law, Carl Reiner.

“She has all the tools,” he told TV Guide in 1976. “She can be the clown one moment, all nutsy crazy, and be very touching the next.”

“Laverne & Shirley” had been off the air three years when Marshall made her feature film debut as a director of the 1986 Whoopi Goldberg comedy “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

She had directed four episodes of “Laverne & Shirley” and the pilot for the short-lived 1979 sitcom “Working Stiffs” when she received an unexpected offer to replace director Howard Zieff 10 days into the shooting of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

“It was real scary,” Marshall told the New York Times in 1992. “I was hired on a Friday and went to work on a Monday. I didn’t know you had to shoot from so many angles!”

“Big,” a fantasy tale in which a boy wakes up in the body of an adult man played by Tom Hanks, earned Hanks an Oscar nomination and made Marshall the first female director in Hollywood history to direct a movie that grossed more than $100 million.

“Awakenings” (1990), a medical drama starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, came next. It received three Oscar nominations, including for best picture and actor in a leading role (for De Niro).

Marshall went on to direct “A League of Their Own” (1992), “Renaissance Man” (1994), “The Preacher’s Wife” (1996) and “Riding in Cars with Boys” (2001).

Marshall appeared in a handful of roles in recent years, most related in some fashion to her late brother Garry Marshall. That same year, Penny Marshall appeared in a special episode of the rebooted CBS series "The Odd Couple" memorializing her brother, in addition to serving as a narrator on her brother's final film, "Mother's Day."

As for her directing career, Marshall had a documentary in post-production about former NBA superstar and recent international diplomat Dennis Rodman. “Rodman” is scheduled for release Sept. 1.

A dedicated sports fan — she had Lakers season tickets and a large collection of sports memorabilia — Marshall was known among longtime friends for being intensely loyal.

She also has been described as a worrier, insecure and self-effacing.

Asked by a Times reporter in 1988 how deep her insecurities were, she joked: “I was born with a frown.”

“I always feel like somehow I’m going to be a failure,” she said in that interview. “I’m from the negativity and depression school. When I see bad reviews, I say, ‘Yeah, they’re probably right.’

“With directing, I know people on movie sets want leadership, but I don’t exude that captain-of-the-ship image. I’d get on the phone with [‘Big’ producer] Jim Brooks and apologize all the time and say, ‘I’m no good at this.’”

Countered Brooks at the time: “Penny has an iron will, which is a thing that almost everybody misses.

“You can’t do the job she’s done and have it be dictated by insecurities,” Brooks said. “Penny has great creative instincts and a real openness to the creative process. She would talk to her actors very honestly and I think that made her actors trust her.”

She was born in the New York borough of the Bronx on Oct. 15, 1943. Her father, Tony, was an industrial filmmaker — he later was a producer on “Laverne & Shirley” — and her mother, Marjorie, ran a tap dancing school.

A tomboy who loved baseball, Marshall began taking dance lessons at age 3.

As a member of her mother’s troupe of precision tap dancers, Marshall appeared on “Ted Mack and the Original Amateur Hour” and “The Jackie Gleason Show.”

But she wasn’t interested in pursuing a career in show business.

“I just thought of it as one of my mother’s weirdnesses,” she told New York Newsday in 1990. “I ran away from it.”

Penny, Garry and their sister, Ronny Hallin, who became a TV producer, got their humor from their mother.

“My mother was funny but destructive,” Marshall told the New York Times in 1992. “She had a very sarcastic sense of humor. She used to call me things.... Things like ‘the bad seed.’“

After graduating from high school, she said, “I wanted to get out; I didn’t care where.”

Marshall majored in psychology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where she met and married UNM football player Michael Henry, with whom she had a daughter, Tracy, her only child, who was born in 1964.

To support the family, Marshall dropped out of college and worked as a secretary and dance teacher.

In 1967, the by-then-divorced Marshall moved to Los Angeles, where older brother Garry already had carved out a successful career as a TV comedy writer.

Marshall didn’t know what to do with her life, but she had enjoyed the laughter and applause she received playing Ado Annie in a production of “Oklahoma!” in Albuquerque, and she started taking acting classes at night.

She made her film debut in a small part in the 1968 biker film “The Savage Seven” and slowly began landing other small roles in films and television.

But she wasn’t sure she had what it takes to succeed in Hollywood, later complaining in an interview that she was “all nose and teeth.”

At one point early in her career, she appeared in a Head & Shoulders commercial as the plain girl with the lifeless brown hair opposite the beautiful girl with the gorgeous blond mane: Farrah Fawcett.

“I just cannot bring myself to accept that the homely person on the screen is me,” Marshall told TV Guide in 1976. “I grew up believing an actress is supposed to be beautiful. After I saw myself in a ‘Love American Style’ segment, I cried for three days. I’ve had braces put on my teeth twice, but they did no good.”

Despite her later career success as a director, her days on “Laverne & Shirley” had an enduring impact.

“I must say that it seems that people remember or have watched it from reruns on TV Land or Nickelodeon,” she told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2007. “I go to the basketball game, and they all still yell, ‘Laverne!’”

Marshall is survived by her sister Ronny, daughter Tracy Reiner and three grandchildren, Spencer, Bella and Viva. Plans for a memorial service have yet to be made.

Local news just reported this. :(

Oh no. Another part of my childhood gone. I tell you in the 70's she was a comedy genius. Loved her on L & S. Loved a lot of her movies too. :(

Oh wow!! I don't even know what to say!! Very sad and shocked!!:( I didn't know till right now, reading it here !!!

RIP Penny!

Like I said in a previous thread, thought that she died today.

Anyone know what Cindy Williams has said, if anything?

Big fan since she played Oscar Madison's secretary, Myrna Turner. Wonderful actress, wonderful director. Definitely in a league of her own.

Rest in peace Penny. Loved her in Laverne & Shirley.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-tDCWZu6OI

Carole King wrote "Now and Forever" for the movie A League of their Own which Penny Marshall directed. Beautiful song. Highly suggest giving it a listen as tribute. R.I.P. Penny Marshall! We will never forget you!

I just saw this on Twitter and I couldn't agree more. It sums it up perfectly.

Very sorry to hear this. May she RIP.:rip:

So sad to hear the news of Penny's passing. Loved her in Laverne & Shirley and as a director of Big and A League of Their Own... :( :( :(

I'm speechless! R.I.P. Laverne

This truly is a big surprise. There were plenty of other obituaries for celebrities that I expected to see before Penny Marshall.


I was going to post a shot of her from an episode of "That Girl," but I don't have a video prepared. I also tried to get her from an episode of "Sam & Cat," but I can't get any screenshots from iTunes anymore, nor can I find any YouTube videos showing her from there.

Ron Howard has this to say on Twitter:

She was funny & so smart. She made the transition from sitcom star to A List movie director with ease & had a major impact on both mediums. All that & always relaxed, funny & totally unpretentious. I was lucky to have known & worked with her.

We're not the only ones in shock today.

My mom said that she cannot watch the movie Awakenings without crying.

As Laverne DeFazio on Laverne & Shirley, Penny Marshall picked up where Lucille Ball left off (https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/as-laverne-defazio-penny-marshall-helped-push-a-lucy-like-hilarity-down-comedys-conveyor-belt/2018/12/18/57d2d3aa-0305-11e9-b6a9-0aa5c2fcc9e4_story.html)

It's pretty clear why Marshall, who died Monday at age 75, found success as a movie director following eight seasons on the classic sitcom Laverne & Shirley. "In directing movies, Marshall brought along what she learned from 178 episodes of sitcom predictability, which can, from another angle, be seen as a form of reliability," says Hank Stuever, in his tribute to Marshall. "The characters are easily understood, relatable and vulnerable. A funny person hides a little pain. A tough person is really a softy." He adds that Marshall's Laverne DeFazio was a natural heir to Lucille Ball's groundbreaking I Love Lucy character. "Outwardly Laverne was a proud broad: pencil skirts, tight sweaters (always monogrammed over the left breast with her trademark, a stylishly cursive 'L') and color-coordinated kerchiefs," says Stuever. "A competitive force to be reckoned with in the bowling alley, Laverne could put a dime in a jukebox and tear up the dance floor. Yet it was the character’s insecurities and tenderness that endeared Laverne (and Marshall) to viewers. For all her bravado, Laverne was easily deflated by embarrassment or loss. On a condensed timeline of TV history, Marshall and her co-star, Cindy Williams (as Shirley Feeney), essentially picked up where I Love Lucy’s Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance left all those chocolates strewn at the end of the conveyor belt. Marshall excelled at Ball’s type of physical comedy, ensuring Laverne would endure eight seasons of ludicrous bouts of overconfidence leading to humorous humiliation. Wrestling rings. Debutante balls. Modeling agencies. Lucy may have been funnier, but Laverne was stronger."

ALSO:

Laverne's voice was nasal, boisterous, wheedling, teasing, sarcastic or playful (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/arts/television/penny-marshall-laverne-shirley.html): "Marshall played a whole repertoire on that brass instrument"
Laverne Marie DeFazio was a rare role model: "a tough, independent woman who didn’t need no man" (https://ew.com/tv/2018/12/18/penny-marshall-dead-appreciation/)
Laverne & Shirley changed how women were portrayed on TV, paving the way for Broad City, Insecure and The Golden Girls (https://www.bustle.com/p/penny-marshall-in-laverne-shirley-paved-the-way-for-so-many-women-in-comedy-15543567)
We have Marshall to thank for the popularity of the monogram
Rob Reiner on ex-wife Penny Marshall (https://twitter.com/robreiner/status/1075113203691008000): "I loved Penny. I grew up with her. She was born with a great gift. She was born with a funnybone and the instinct of how to use it. I was very lucky to have lived with her and her funnybone. I will miss her."
Ron Howard, Marion Ross, Anson Williams and more Happy Days stars pay tribute to Marshall (https://deadline.com/2018/12/penny-marshall-happy-days-anson-williams-marion-ross-don-most-ron-howard-1202522361/)
Fred Armisen had the perfect Penny Marshall impression (https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/snl-fred-armisen-penny-marshall-impression.html)
MeTV to pay tribute to Marshall by airing her favorite Laverne & Shirley episodes starting on Sunday (http://eclipsemagazine.com/metv-pays-tribute-to-penny-marshal/)

Penny Marshall dies: Laverne & Shirley star was 75 (https://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny-metro-penny-marshall-obit-20181218-story.html)

The Bronx-born actress and director died last night at her Hollywood Hills home from complications from diabetes, said her publicist Michelle Bega. Marshall was nominated for three Golden Globes for the role that made her famous: Laverne DeFazio on the ABC Happy Days spinoff Laverne & Shirley. For eight seasons, from 1976 to 1983, Marshall co-starred with Cindy Williams as best friends, roommates and co-workers at a brewery in 1950s Milwaukee on the sitcom co-created by older brother Garry Marshall. Marshall followed her sitcom career by directing hit films like Big and A League of Their Own. Marshall and Williams' reunited on screen in 2013 for the Nickelodeon sitcom Sam & Cat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EhYC2Yl2NY). Marshall was also The Simpsons' first guest-star, appearing as Ms. Botz, "The Babysitter Bandit," (http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Lucille_Botzcowski) on the first season. Actors paid tribute to Marshall on Twitter. "I grew up wanting to be as funny as Penny Marshall, and had the pleasure of meeting her a few times," tweeted Mayim Bialik (http://twitter.com/missmayim/status/1075108662627176448). "Watch some old Laverne and Shirley to see why her brother Garry insisted on casting her. Comedy gold, she was." Added Patton Oswalt: "I had the good fortune to be directed by her (https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/1075105226372263936) once and she was sharp and smart and hilarious." Rosie O'Donnell, whom Marshall directed in A League of Their Own, tweeted she was "simply heartbroken (http://twitter.com/Rosie/status/1075104638884564997)," linking to a video of a 1996 Kmart commercial they did together (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB43HsExO3w).

Cindy Williams has responded.

https://www.today.com/popculture/laverne-shirley-s-cindy-williams-mourns-co-star-penny-marshall-t145482


"What an extraordinary loss. My good friend, Penny Marshall is gone — one in a million," she told TODAY in the statement, which is one of many from Marshall's peers and friends. "Utterly unique, a truly great talent. And, oh what fun we had! Can't describe how I'll miss her."

Anything from David Lander?

Anything from David Lander?

I know he has Multiple Sclerosis pretty bad. Maybe that's why we haven't heard anything.

Anything from David Lander?
https://www.tmz.com/2018/12/19/penny-marshall-laverne-shirley-david-lander-squiggy-big-break/


Squiggy From 'Laverne & Shirley' Penny Marshall Gave Me My Big Break


David Lander will forever be indebted to the late Penny Marshall, because the beloved actress and director gave him his first major role in Hollywood.

David, who played Squiggy on the 1970s hit show "Laverne & Shirley," tells TMZ ... Penny fought hard to get David and Michael McKean cast on the show, helping convince show producers he was perfect for the part.

David tells us Penny, who played the lead role, knew the producers would never let her put David and Michael on the show unless they saw them in character, so Penny arranged for them to perform as Lenny and Squiggy in front of 100 guests at a party she was throwing with then-husband Rob Reiner.

David says he and Michael did a comedy bit about Lenny and Squiggy going to vocational school to become butlers ... there was some dirty humor, and the crowd loved it. Penny's brother, famed director Garry Marshall, heard about the bit and called the following day, offering roles to David and Michael.

David played Squiggy for all of the show's 8 seasons, and he tells us Penny "had a tremendous impression on his life."

We broke the story ... Penny died Monday following complications from diabetes. She was 75.

https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/ny-news-penny-marshall-dead-twitter-react-20181218-story.html

Here's a more direct quote from David

“Penny will be missed,” Lander wrote in an email to the Daily News. Lander played Andrew “Squiggy” Squiggman, who lived across the hall from Marshall’s Laverne DeFazio from 1976 to 1983. “I don’t think a comment can sum up her life.”

Thank you Mr. Television.

Some more from Michael

MeTV is paying tribute to her on Sunday:

http://blog.sitcomsonline.com/2018/12/remembering-penny-marshall-metv-to-air.html?m=1

Cindy Williams posted this on her twitter:


Cindy Williams
‏ @Cindy_Williams1


235102


I Love You, Partner.

Episodes that will be airing:

"Fakeout at the Stakeout," "Bridal Shower," "Guinea Pigs," "Steppin' Out," "Airport '59," "Supermarket Sweep," "Christmas Eve at the Booby Hatch," and "Oh, Come All Ye Bums."