Penny Marshall made her theatrical feature film debut in a small role as "Tina," a young girl who gets puked on by one of THE SAVAGE SEVEN, a motorcycle gang running wild through an Indian reservation. Richard Rush directed the 1968 film. Atco Records released the film's song-track LP, which featured songs by Iron Butterfly and Cream. It has not been re-issued on CD.
Debbie Reynolds co-starred with James Garner in 1968's HOW SWEET IT IS!. As the film opens, "Jenny Henderson" (Reynolds) discovers that "Davey" (Donald Losby), her son, has arranged to accompany "Bootsie" (Hilarie Thompson), his girl friend, on a European tour, and arranges to have "Grif" (Garner), her photographer husband, assigned to cover the tour for a magazine. Penny Marshall had a bit part as a one of the girls on the tour. Jerry Paris directed this comedy, which was co-written and co-produced by Penny's brother, Garry Marshall.
Pat Williams' score was released on an RCA LP, and was re-issued on CD by Vocalion in 2016. Hit songwriter Jimmy Webb composed two songs for the soundtrack: the title track, "How Sweet It Is," and "Montage," which appears at the midway point, when both Penny Marshall and Heather Menzies make their appearances below a portrait of the Mona Lisa. Both songs were performed by The Picardy Singers; neither became a hit.
The writing-producing team of Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson, and director Jerry Paris, re-teamed for the 1970 romantic drama THE GRASSHOPPER. The story finds bored, 19-year-old "Christine Adams" (Jacqueline Bisset) leaving her home in British Columbia and journeying to Los Angeles to join her old boyfriend, "Eddie" (Tim O'Kelly). But her life's path ultimately leads her to Las Vegas and relationships with other men (Jim Brown; Joseph Cotton). Penny Marshall has a tiny role as a groupie. Billy Goldenberg's score was released on a National General LP, but has never been re-issued on CD.
Garry Marshall, Belson, and Paris next turned their attention to television for the 1972 NBC telefilm EVIL ROY SLADE. In the story, the meanest villain in the West (John Astin) falls for a pretty schoolteacher (Pamela Austin) and tries to change his ways, but a determined (and egomaniacal) singing sheriff (Dick Shawn) is out to capture him. Penny Marshall had a bit part as a bank teller. Her later fame got her visage added to video covers for the film, even though the size of her part didn't warrant such treatment.
The film was based on characters created for a 1969 pilot for an unproduced series entitled "Sheriff Who?", so called because every week there would be a new sheriff (played by a guest star), who would be killed by Evil Roy Slade. Four composers (including actor Stuart Margolin) provided music for the film.
In the 1974 independent comedy HOW COME NOBODY'S ON OUR SIDE?, a pair of movie stuntmen (Adam Roarke and Larry Bishop of THE SAVAGE SEVEN) and some bit players take to the road after becoming disgusted with the self-indulgent Hollywood lifestyle. It eventually turns into a full-blown caper movie when the scruffy pair shave off their beards, pose as cops and smuggle grass over the Mexican border. Along the way, a (fully-haired) Rob Reiner turns up as a south-of-the-border dope dealer named "Miguelito," with Penny Marshall as his ditzy squeeze "Theresa". Reiner and Marshall had married in 1971.
Director Richard Michaels kept the budget low by deferring a part of the salaries of cast and crew. “With actors, who are normally paid $120 a day, I paid $60 with the obligation of paying $120 more once the film starts making money,” he said. LaMont Johnson provided the unreleased score and a couple of songs for the film.
Penny Marshall and Rob Reiner in HOW COME NOBODY'S ON OUR SIDE?
"The Odd Couple' was the first of several sitcoms developed by Garry Marshall for Paramount Television. The show was based on the 1965 play of the same name, which was written by Neil Simon, as well as on the play's 1968 film adaptation. The show premiered in September 1970 and starred Tony Randall as "Felix Unger" and Jack Klugman as "Oscar Madison." From 1972 to 1974, Penny Marshall appeared in 27 episodes of the show as "Myrna Turner," Oscar's secretary. She made her last appearance in an episode in which she married "Sheldn" (his legal name since the "o" was omitted from his birth certificate), played by Rob Reiner.
Penny Marshall left "The Odd Couple" because she was co-starring on a new sitcom "Friends and Lovers", premiering in the fall of 1974. The show starred Paul Sand as "Robert Dreyfuss," a young bachelor and double-bass player who returns to Boston after living in Denver for three years and wins a job playing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is a romantic who falls in love easily with the women he meets, but he has little luck with them because he is shy, passive, dour-faced, and tends to say the wrong things at the wrong time. In sharp contrast, his older brother "Charlie" (Michael Pataki) is aggressive, loud, physically fit, and athletic. Charlie is protective of Robert, while Charlie's affection-starved wife "Janice" (Marshall) constantly mocks Robert for his romantic failures, and Robert often gets caught in the middle of the arguments to which Charlie and Janice are prone.
CBS aired "Friends and Lovers" on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. between two blockbuster hit situation comedies, "All in the Family" at 8:00 p.m. and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" at 9:00 p.m. – arguably the best time slot for a new series in the autumn of 1974. The show also received much publicity, touted as the "sleeper" hit of the fall 1974 season.
During its run the show had good ratings. It was the 25th most-viewed television show of the season, and beat its time-slot competition, the best of which was NBC's "Emergency," which came in at #30 for the year. However, its ratings paled in comparison to those of the shows before and after it; it lost viewers from "All in the Family," which was the #1 rated series, and network executives believed that it did not provide a good lead-in audience for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," whose viewership fell from previous seasons to come in at #11. Especially given the high hopes the network had had for the show, it was considered a ratings disappointment for its highly advantageous time slot and, in fact, one of the bigger disappointments of the fall 1974 season. "Friends and Lovers" was cancelled after 15 episodes.
"Laverne & Shirley" was a spin-off from "Happy Days," as the two lead characters were originally introduced on that series as acquaintances of "Fonzie" (Henry Winkler). Set in roughly the same time period, the timeline started in approximately 1958, when the series began, through 1967, when the series ended. As with "Happy Days," it was made by Paramount Television, created by Garry Marshall (along with Lowell Ganz and Mark Rothman).
The series followed the lives of "Laverne DeFazio" (Penny Marshall) and "Shirley Feeney" (Cindy Williams), two friends and roommates who work as bottle-cappers in the fictitious Shotz Brewery in late 1950s Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From the sixth season onward, the series' setting changed to mid-1960s Burbank, California. Michael McKean and David Lander co-starred as their friends and neighbors "Lenny" and "Squiggy," along with Eddie Mekka as "Carmine Ragusa," Phil Foster as Laverne's father "Frank DeFazio," and Betty Garrett as the girls' landlady "Edna Babish."
Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams in "Laverne & Shirley"
"Laverne & Shirley" premiered as a mid-season replacement in the 1975–76 TV season, with its first episode airing in January 1976. The show followed its "parent series," "Happy Days," at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday nights, replacing "Welcome Back, Kotter," which ABC moved elsewhere to shore up another part of its schedule. The show was an immediate hit, and ended up as the #3 rated show for the year, eclipsing "Happy Days," which came in at #11.
Betty Garrett, Eddie Mekka, Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams
In it's second season (1976-77), "Laverne & Shirley" did even better, earning the #2 spot for the year, behind "Happy Days" which came in at #1, giving ABC an incredible "one-two" punch to kick off its Tuesday schedule. "Laverne & Shirley" received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Comedy Series, losing to "Barney Miller."
Cindy Williams, Henry Winkler, and Penny Marshall
The third season (1977-78) was much the same, but with the shows' positions reversed. This time it was "Laverne & Shirley" at No. 1 and "Happy Days" at No.2. Penny Marshall received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in a Comedy Series, losing to Carol Burnett.
"Laverne & Shirley" continued as the most watched show on television during its fourth season (1978-79), while " Happy Days' dropped slightly to the No. 3 spot. (in a tie with another of its spin-offs, "Mork and Mindy."). Penny Marshall again received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in a Comedy Series, losing this time to Linda Lavin for "Alice."
The show's fifth season (1979-80), however, proved how much "Laverne & Shirley" owed to its lead-in "Happy Days." ABC moved "Laverne & Shirley" to Thursday at 8 p.m. as a lead in for its new show "Benson." "Laverne & Shirley" was also opposite a little stiffer competition on the new night: "The Waltons" on CBS and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" on NBC. Viewership dropped drastically. In an effort to improve the show's ratings, ABC moved "Laverne & Shirley" to Mondays at 8 p.m. in December, 1979. The ratings fared no better, so in February, 1980, the network moved the series back to its familiar Tuesday night berth right after "Happy Days." While "Benson" was able to finish in the #27 spot for the year, "Laverne & Shirley," which just a year earlier had been at #1, completely dropped out of the top 30 shows. Nevertheless, Penny Marshall received her third consecutive Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in a Comedy Series. She lost once more to Linda Lavin.
For the sixth season in September 1980, Laverne and Shirley and their friends all moved from Milwaukee to Burbank, California. The ladies took jobs at a department store, Frank and Edna managed a Texas barbecue restaurant called Cowboy Bill's, Carmine delivered singing telegrams and sought work as an actor, and Lenny and Squiggy started a talent agency called Squignowski Talent Agency. From this point until the end of the series' run, "Laverne & Shirley" was set in the mid-1960s. "Laverne & Shirley" was now back in its normal Tuesday night slot after "Happy Days," but both series were showing their age. "Happy Days" rated #15 for the year, and "Laverne & Shirley" came in at #20. In 1981, Penny Marshall and her husband Rob Reiner divorced.
Season 7 (1981-82) was much the same. "Happy Days" dropped to #18, and "Laverne & Shirley" stayed at #20. In March 1982, Cindy Williams became pregnant with her first child. In May, Williams and her manager-husband Bill Hudson presented a list of demands to accommodate her pregnancy and pending childbirth, which Paramount refused. In August, two episodes into production of the series' eighth season, Williams left the show and filed a $20 million lawsuit against Paramount. The case was later settled out of court and Williams was released from her contract.
Season 8 (1982-83) saw "Happy Days" falling to #28 and "Laverne & Shirley" falling to #25. Despite the departure of Williams, ratings were still good, and ABC asked Penny Marshall to return for a ninth year, but she insisted that the show move its production base from Los Angeles to New York. Eyeing the cost of such an endeavor, and given the age of the show, ABC quietly canceled "Laverne & Shirley" in May 1983 after 178 episodes.
The theme song from the series ("Making Our Dreams Come True" as performed by Cyndi Grecco) was released as a single from Cyndi's LP by the same name and became a radio favorite, becoming a top-30 American hit in 1976.
In 1976, Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams released an album, performed in character, titled "Laverne & Shirley Sing," which contained some original songs along with some 1950s and 1960s standards. The album was originally released on Atlantic Records. On November 11, 2003, Collector's Choice released it on CD.
Penny Marshall had made her directorial debut in television in 1979, directing an episode of the short-lived series "Working Stiffs," which starred Jim Belushi and Michael Keaton. She had also directed four episodes of "Laverne & Shirley" between 1979 and 1981.
Marshall made her theatrical feature film directorial debut with the 1986 comedy thriller JUMPIN' JACK FLASH. The story concerned "Terry Doolittle" (Whoopi Goldberg) who works for a bank that communicates via computer with clients from around the world. One day she receives a very strange message and when she decodes it, she ends up trying to help a British spy.
The movie was originally conceived as a vehicle for actress Shelley Long about a female computer whiz who becomes enmeshed with a Russian spy. Director Howard Zieff commissioned numerous script rewrites, and reportedly story changes were still being done at the start of principal photography.
At least ten writers were hired to work on the script, although actress Whoopi Goldberg (who replaced Long) told the 30 December 1985 issue of Newsweek that the number was closer to eighteen. According to Penny Marshall's memoir My Mother Was Nuts, the script had numerous versions. Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer wrote one for Shelly Long as the star. A version by David Mamet was filled with profanity.
Production began on 11 November 1985 in New York City under director Howard Zieff. Creative differences caused Zieff to leave the project after ten days of filming. Production shut down 21 November 1985 with director Marshall taking charge on 25 November 1985 and producer Joel Silver replacing producer Marvin Worth. It is unknown whether the New York footage already shot was incorporated into the final film. After taking the helm, Marshall brought in Marty Kurzfeld and Christopher Thompson to further rework the screenplay.
After principal photography finished, Penny Marshall wanted to shoot some pick-up shots in New York. She asked Gian-Carlo Coppola, her daughter Tracy Reiner's ex, to be the cameraman. Unfortunately, Coppola died in a boating accident before the filming date. The New York re-shoots were canceled, but Coppola got a 'special thanks' in the end credits.
The Mercury soundtrack LP had 8 songs and six minutes of Thomas Newman's score. The album received a CD release only in Europe. JUMPIN' JACK FLASH grossed about $30 million.
BIg is a fantasy comedy drama in which Tom Hanks stars as idiotic 12-year-old "Josh Baskin" who magically transforms into an 30-year old adult male overnight when he makes a wish on a mysterious fortune teller machine at a amusement park. He soon gains employment at a toy company and falls in love with one of its employees, "Susan Lawrence" (Elizabeth Perkins).
Director Penny Marshall filmed one of the most iconic scenes in movies with Robert Loggia and Tom Hanks, when the two danced the music of Heart and Soul on the "Walking Piano" at the FAO Schwarz toy store in Manhattan. Doubles dressed like the pair were on hand just in case the two could not do the dance moves correctly. It became their goal to do the entire keyboard number without the aid of the doubles, and they succeeded.
The actual store piano was 6.5 feet long and played only one octave. So the piano was too small to play the notes Marshall needed for the song. Marshall contacted Remo Saraceni, the creator of the "Walking Piano," and said she needed one built large enough to accommodate the dancing feet of two grown men. The obliging Saraceni made a 16-foot long, full three-octave piano wide enough for the scene.
Although Tom Hanks was Marshall’s first choice for the role of “Josh,” he was unavailable when casting began. Other actors considered for the role included Jeff Bridges and Robert De Niro. Niro reportedly turned down an offer of $3 million, having heard that Warren Beatty’s going rate was $6 million. Marshall would have accepted John Travolta in the role, and he wanted to do it, but the studio didn't want him, considering him to be "box-office poison" at the time. Marshall ended up waiting for Hanks.
To give Hanks an idea of how a twelve-year-old would behave, Marshall filmed each "grown-up" scene with David Moscow (Young Josh) playing Hanks' part, who then copied Moscow's behavior. (Hanks would go on to do something similar for FORREST GUMP, when he would spend time with Michael Conner Humphreys (Young Forrest) and imitate his southern accent to prepare for the part.)
Howard Shore's score for the 1988 film was released by Varese Sarabande in 2002. The film opened on 3 June 1988 in 1,100 theaters with a weekend box-office gross of $8.2 million. By 22 July 1988, BIG had surpassed Barbra Streisand’s YENTL (1983) as the most successful feature film ever directed by a woman. To that date, BIG had taken in $68 million in box-office receipts, while the final box-office gross for YENTL was $38 million. The box-office gross for BIG continued to climb, and it grossed $113.6 million domestically and over $40 million internationally by mid-February 1989.
In 1969 New York City, "Dr. Malcolm Sayer" (Robin Williams) arrives at Bainbridge Hospital in the Bronx. Although he has come to apply for a research position, Dr. Sayer is informed by the hospital head, "Dr. Kaufman" (John Heard), that Bainbridge is a chronic care hospital with no research department. Despite his lack of clinical experience, Sayer is hired to treat patients. Later, experimenting with a drug called L-Dopa, Sayer finds that it can cause remarkable AWAKENINGS in some brain-damaged patients, in particular a post-encephalitic patient named "Leonard Lowe" (Robert De Niro).
Producers Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker optioned Dr. Oliver Sacks’s 1973 book, Awakenings, after “ protracted negotiations. The budget for the film was cited as $29 million.
Director Penny Marshall first read the script after receiving it from her agents at Creative Artists Agency. Marshall brought the project to Dawn Steel at Columbia Pictures. Although Steel greenlit the film, she left Columbia by the time production began.
Marshall at first wanted Bill Murray to play Leonard Lowe. Murray was interested in the project, but Marshall ultimately decided against it because she didn't want audiences expecting a comedy. Marshall then recruited friend Robert De Niro to star as Lowe. AWAKENINGS was John Heard's second time working with director Marshall (after BIG).
Robert De Niro meticulously prepared for his role by studying footage of real-life patient “awakenings.” Robin Williams spent time with the real Dr. Oliver Sacks and observed him with patients. An early draft of the script included a scene in which De Niro’s character makes a “final excursion to the outside world,” recalling the 1968 film CHARLY. Marshall reportedly fought to leave the scene out.
“Lillian T.,” the only survivor of Sacks’s post-encephalitic patients who awakened in 1969, appeared in an early, five-hour cut of the film, in a sequence showing a hospital library built by Sayer’s patients. The library subplot was removed, however, and Lillian does not appear in the final version of the film, although she is credited in “Special Thanks” as “Lillian Tighe.”
Neither Williams nor De Niro were available for international publicity tours. Thus, Columbia relied on Marshall and Sacks for overseas promotions. Picador, the paperback publisher of Sacks’s book, helped promote the film with bookshop displays including the movie poster.
Randy Newman's score for the 1990 film was released by Reprise. Reviews of the film were mixed, although Williams and De Niro received consistent praise for their performances. The film grossed $52 million.
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN was a 1992 comedy about a 1940's women's baseball team. The movie focuses on the combative relationship between the catcher (Geena Davis) and her sister, the pitcher (Lori Petty). Director Penny Marshall cast her daughter Tracy Reiner as "Betty Spaghetti" and her brother Garry Marshall as candy-bar magnate and team owner "Walter Harvey." Garry was cast at the last minute because Penny couldn't afford her original choice for the part, Christopher Walken. She also cast her niece, Kathleen Marshall, Gary's daughter, as outfielder "'Mumbles' Brockman." Garry Marshall received a poster credit as an actor.
Co-producers Bill Pace and Ronnie Clemmer became interested in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) after reading an article in the Boston Globe. They attended the league’s annual reunion in Fort Wayne, IN, and acquired film rights to the organization and its story. Coincidentally, around the same time, Pace and Clemmer’s top-choice director, Penny Marshall, became interested in the subject after seeing a Public Broadcasting System documentary about the league, titled "A League of Their Own." Pace and Clemmer had not yet reached out to Marshall when she discovered they owned film rights to the AAGPBL, and contacted them. The three met and agreed to work together. Kelly Candaele, co-producer of the PBS documentary and son of an AAGPBL player named Helen St. Aubin, wrote a treatment for Marshall based on his mother and her sister Margaret’s experiences playing in the league.
The project was initially set up at Twentieth Century Fox, with Marshall set to direct. However, when Marshall left to direct AWAKENINGS, she was replaced by David Anspaugh, but remained with the project as an executive producer. Actress Demi Moore was set to star, and the production came within days of rehearsals, but Moore dropped out and the project went into turnaround. The script was picked up by Columbia Pictures when, after filming AWAKENINGS, Marshall established a production deal there.
Many actresses in Hollywood vied for parts in the film. To cast the movie, Marshall held baseball tryouts for 2,000 actresses. Even big stars were there because if you couldn't play ball you couldn't be in the movie. Geena Davis, however, auditioned in Penny Marshall's backyard. Farrah Fawcett really wanted to take part in the film and was physically able to play the game, but according to Marshall she was slightly too old. Marisa Tomei filmed an audition tape of her playing baseball, being coached by Joe Pesci, on the set of MY COUSIN VINNY, but Marshall felt that she just wasn't a ball player. Marshall recounts that Lori Singer would have been cast if she hadn't insisted on getting a bigger part. Demi Moore wanted back on the project, but had to back out because she became pregnant. Penny Marshall remarked that "Bruce [Willis] literally screwed her out of the part."
Lavonne Paire Davis, who died in February 2013 at age 88, served as an uncredited consultant to Penny Marshall, and was one of several real-life female ballplayers who helped inspire the fictional Dottie Hinson, played by Geena Davis. To get enough baseball footage, Penny Marshall had the girls play unscripted innings.
The soldier who did most of the dancing with Madonna in a bar scene was a recurring character on Penny Marshall's "Laverne & Shirley" television show. The actor, Eddie Mekka, was Shirley's boyfriend and his occupation was a dance teacher. David L. Lander, who has an uncredited role as a game announcer, is a real-life baseball fanatic, who later became a scout for the Anaheim Angels. He is also a veteran of "Laverne and Shirley," having played the role of "Squiggy."
Tom Hanks thought he was too young to be believable as manager "Jimmy Dugan" But Penny Marshall said Dugan wasn't supposed to be old; he was just injured and washed-up. Hanks gained thirty pounds in preparation for his role. He attributed the weight he gained to a nearby Dairy Queen. All during filming, Penny Marshall encouraged Hanks to keep on eating. Meanwhile, she also told Rosie O'Donnell to eat as little as possible.
Penny Marshall on the set of A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
Penny Marshall’s Parkway Productions teamed with Columbia Pictures and QVC home-shopping television network to sell merchandise related to the film. The deal was said to be the first of its kind between a major film distributor, a production company, and a retailer. Items included baseball jerseys, crew jackets, and baseball caps. Marshall was scheduled to appear in three one-hour segments that would air the weekend of 27 Jue 1992, to coincide with a national sneak preview of the film.
Critical reception was mixed, but the film was commercially successful. A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN took in $13.7 million on 1,782 screens in its opening weekend, making it Columbia Pictures’ highest-grossing non-sequel opener, to that time. Domestic box-office earnings surpassed $100 million on the film’s sixty-eighth day in release. The final tally was $132 million.
Hans Zimmer, who, according to Marshall, didn't know anything about baseball, scored the film. His score claimed a few tracks on the Columbia Records soundtrack CD that was released.
Demi Moore wanted back on the project, but had to back out because she became pregnant. Penny Marshall remarked that "Bruce [Willis] literally screwed her out of the part."
Hahaha!
I enjoyed her growing up watching Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. RIP.
"League Of Their Own" is great. I heard Debra Winger was supposed to play Geena Davis's part but backed out when she heard Madonna was going to be in the film.
"League Of Their Own" is great. I heard Debra Winger was supposed to play Geena Davis's part but backed out when she heard Madonna was going to be in the film.
Debra Winger’s concerns about the “stunt casting” of Madonna were discussed in the 11 June 1991 Daily Variety, which quoted the actress as saying, “I’m afraid of the press zoo.” Shooting was set to begin on 17 June 1991; however, Winger dropped out around that time. Rumors circulated that Winger and Madonna had not gotten along in rehearsals, although conflicting reports stated that Winger left due to an increasingly restrictive contract set forth by Columbia, which included punitive measures if the actress caused filming delays or “stepped out of line.” Columbia addressed the rumors by issuing a press release, stating, “Winger did not ‘walk off’ the picture… Columbia decided to take the film in a different creative direction.”
