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Best Known For
Penny Marshall became a successful film director after starring in the sitcom Laverne and Shirley. Her works include Big and Riding in Cars With Boys.
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Penny Marshall - On NOT Writing (Shatner's Raw Nerve) (1:23)
Penny Marshall - On NOT Writing
Penny Marshall discusses her fear of committing thoughts to paper.
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Play NowPenny Marshall. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 12:47, May 20, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/penny-marshall-9542495.
Penny Marshall. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/penny-marshall-9542495 [Accessed 20 May 2013].
"Penny Marshall." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 20 2013, 12:47 http://www.biography.com/people/penny-marshall-9542495.
"Penny Marshall," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/penny-marshall-9542495 [accessed May 20, 2013].
"Penny Marshall," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/penny-marshall-9542495 (accessed May 20, 2013).
Penny Marshall [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 20] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/penny-marshall-9542495.
Penny Marshall, http://www.biography.com/people/penny-marshall-9542495 (last visited May 20, 2013).
Penny Marshall. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/penny-marshall-9542495. Accessed May 20, 2013.
Synopsis
Penny Marshall, born in New York City in 1943, spent her early years as Laverne on the sitcom Laverne and Shirley. In 1985, Marshall's friend, Whoopi Goldberg, convinced her to pursue a career in directing, starting with the movie Jumpin' Jack Flash. The film wasn't a hit, but it launched Marshall's career. She went on to direct Big,
Awakenings, A League of Their Own and Riding in Cars With Boys.
Early Life
Born Carole Penny Marsciarelli on October 15, 1943, in New York City, Marshall grew up in the Bronx with parents Tony Marshall, a director and producer, and Marjorie Marshall, a dance teacher. (Penny's Italian-American father changed the family's last name before she was born.) Penny had two siblings, older brother Garry and sister Ronny, whom she would later follow into show business.
After spending her entire childhood in the Bronx, Marshall "wanted to get out," following graduation from Walton High School in 1960. "I didn't care where," she said. She ventured west to the University of New Mexico, where she studied math and psychology, and enlisted friends and teachers to help her lose her thick Bronx accent. "Obviously, they failed," she later quipped in her distinctive New York cadence.
While in college, she took up with a campus football player named Michael Henry and became pregnant with their daughter, Tracy. She married Henry and dropped out of school. Marshall worked as a tap dancer and secretary to support the young family, but when the marriage ended a few years later, she decided to move to Los Angeles to try to break into show business. While there, she reunited with her brother Garry, who was working as a comedy writer, and her sister Ronny Hallin, who was a casting director and producer.
Early TV Roles
It was a rough ride at first. The few television commercials she booked focused on her less-than-glamorous looks, featuring her as the "before" in before-and-after ads for supposedly transformative beauty products. By 1971, after several years in Los Angeles, Marshall landed a recurring role as secretary Myrna Turner on The Odd Couple, a show her brother wrote. Marshall scored two appearances on The Mary Tyler Moore Show before scoring a larger role on another of her brother's series, Happy Days. Marshall joined the actress Cindy Williams in playing Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney, respectively, double dates of Fonzie and his pal. Audiences responded so enthusiastically to the wisecracking women that Garry Marshall created a spin-off series based on their characters.
Laverne and Shirley
Laverne and Shirley, a sitcom chronicling the lives of two women working in a Milwaukee brewery, ran from 1976 to 1983 and became a big hit with audiences.
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