Penny Marshall

Penny Marshall was born Carole Penny Marshall on October 15, 1943 in the Bronx, New York. The Libra was 5' 6 1/2", with brown hair and Green Eyes. She was the daughter of Marjorie (Ward), a tap dance teacher, and Anthony "Tony" Marshall, an industrial film director. She was the younger sister of filmmakers Garry Marshall and Ronny Hallin. Her father was of Italian descent, originally surnamed "Masciarelli," and her mother was of German, Scottish, English, and Irish ancestry. Penny was known in her family as "the bad one". . . because not only did she walk on the ledge of her family's apartment building, but she snuck into the movies as a child and even dated a guy named "Lefty. " She attended a private girls' high school in New York and then went to the University of New Mexico for two and a half years.

There, Penny got pregnant with daughter, Tracy Reiner, and soon after married the father, Michael Henry, in 1961.

The couple divorced two years later in 1963. She worked as a secretary for awhile.

Her film debut came from her brother Garry Marshall, who put her in the movie How Sweet It Is! (1968) with the talented Debbie Reynolds and James Garner. She also did a dandruff commercial with Farrah Fawcett - the casting people, of course, giving Farrah the part of the "beautiful girl" and Penny the part of the "plain girl. " This only added to Penny's insecurity with her looks.

She also played Mary Richards' neighbor, Paula Kovacks, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) for a couple of episodes.

She then married Rob Reiner on April 10, 1971, shortly after getting her big television break as Oscar Madison's secretary, Myrna Turner, on The Odd Couple (1970).

However, her Laverne & Shirley (1976) fame came when her brother needed two women to play "fast girls" who were friends of Arthur Fonzarelli and would date Fonzie and Richie Cunningham on Happy Days (1974). Penny had been working on miscellaneous writing projects ("My Country Tis Of Thee", a bicentennial spoof for Francis Ford Coppola and "Paper Hands" about the Salem Witch Trials) with writing partner Cindy Williams. Cindy happened to be a friend and ex-girlfriend of Henry Winkler's, so Garry asked the two to play the parts of these girls. The audience saw their wonderful chemistry, and loved them so much, a spin-off was created for them. Penny was well-known as Laverne DeFazio.

She and Rob had divorced in 1980. The show ended three years later, half a year after Cindy Williams left the show due to pregnancy (her first baby, Emily, from now ex-husband Bill Hudson). . . they wanted Williams to work the week she was supposed to deliver.

She replaced Howard Zieff as director of Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) despite having only a couple of Laverne & Shirley (1976) and Happy Days (1974) episodes on her directing resumé.

Is the first female to direct a movie that grossed over 100 million dollars in the United States, with Big (1988). And the first female director with two movies that grossed over 100 million, with A League of Their Own (1992).

She has directed one film selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: A League of Their Own (1992).

Played the wife of her real-life brother Garry Marshall in Hocus Pocus (1993).

Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on August 12, 2004.

In 2009 she was diagnosed with a brain tumor which was found to be from lung cancer which was discovered upon her diagnosis. The tumor was successfully removed and she underwent twelve radiation treatments, which caused a fifty pound weight gain. In 2012 she announced that she was in remission, even later joking that with cancer, as most people lost weight, she instead gained. In a 2012 interview with the Huffington Post she said, that she regretted smoking. She died on December 18, 2018 of heart failure caused by atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and diabetes. She was 75. Upon Marshall's death in 2018, Suzanne Somers, as part of her statement and reflection of her passing, remarked that she assisted Marshall in selecting "cutting edge therapies" as similarly Somers herself had undertaken with her own, previous battle with cancer.