Penny Marshall

American actress and film director, best known for playing "Laverne" in the popular TV show "Laverne and Shirley," Americas No. 1 show in the 1977-1978 season. The first woman director to top $100 million at the box office, she directed such films as "Jumpin Jack Flash," "Big," "Awakenings," "A League of Their Own" and "The Preachers Wife." Marshall was named Carole after the glamorous film comedienne Carole Lombard. Raised in the Bronx, she was the third child after brother Garry and sister Ronny of Tony Marshall (originally Marscharelli), an industrial filmmaker and his wife Marjorie, a dance teacher who ran a studio for child hoofers in their Bronx apartment house basement. Marshall was groomed by her mother from her earliest days to be a dancer, but her tomboy tendencies often took precedence over her tap shoes. She reluctantly danced into her teenage years, performing with her mothers troupe on the "Jackie Gleason Show," and Ted Macks "The Original Amateur Hour," where they won three times. Rejected from a local girl gang because of the braces on her teeth, she hung out with boy gangs instead, cultivated a tough image and becoming, in her words, "the worlds worst." After graduating from Walton High School, she enrolled in the University of New Mexico as a psychology major, where she dropped out in her junior year and married football playing classmate Michael Henry. Their daughter Tracy was born in 1964, after which Marshall worked as a secretary and a dance teacher to provide support as Henry remained a full-time student. The marriage ended in divorce two years later. "We were just too young to be married." A window of opportunity opened in 1967 when she was cast in the role of Ado Annie in a local production of "Oklahoma!" Becoming hooked on acting, she left Tracy with Henry and moved to Los Angeles. "I didnt want to bring Tracy - being an actress and living on unemployment wasnt cool. But I missed my kid more than anything." After appearing in several commercials, she sent for Tracy to join her. Living one block from her comedy-writing-director brother Garry, she was cast by him in minor roles in "The Odd Couple," "The Bob Newhart Show" and "Happy Days," where she took her role of Laverne DeFazio into her own series, "Laverne and Shirley." The top rated TV series ended in the 1970s after 178 episodes; they returned to the set some 20 years later for "The Laverne and Shirley Reunion," on 22 May 1995. While filming "Laverne and Shirley," Marshall directed several episodes in addition to a TV pilot called "Working Stiffs." Her debut as a film director came unexpectedly in 1985, when, after only ten days of shooting, she was asked to take charge of a troubled Whoopi Goldberg film, "Jumpin Jack Flash." Critics were blasé after its release, but colleagues agreed unanimously it was Marshall who saved the movie. The success of her next film, "Big," starring Tom Hanks, firmly established her as a major commercial director, with continued kudos for "Awakenings" with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, followed by "A League of their Own," with Madonna and Rosie ODonnell, a film which Marshall insists was not a feminist statement. "Once I moved to Hollywood I began acting seriously and that prepared me for directing. I developed a good work ethic and I knew I wouldnt fall apart on the job. I have a vision of what I want on film and the stamina to get it." Marshall made a second marriage to "All In The Family" star R Read less