Over the course of its eight-season run, Laverne and Shirley earned multiple Primetime Emmy Awards and Golden Globe Awards, chronicling the titular pair’s adventures while sharing an apartment and working together at a Milwaukee beer-bottling plant. Her debut as Laverne alongside actress Cindy Williams as Shirley Feeney was so well-received by fans that their characters were given their own spin-off show, Laverne and Shirley. Marshall was born in October 1943 and first gained audiences’ attention with her portrayal of Laverne DeFazio in the popular sitcom Happy Days, created by her brother Garry Marshall.
The first woman to direct a film that made more than $100 million domestically - 1988’s body-swapping Tom Hanks comedy Big - Marshall paved the way for female filmmakers in an industry with a well-documented bias against female directors. Penny Marshall, who rose to fame in the long-running sitcom Laverne and Shirley and later directed popular films such as A League Of Their Own and Big, has died at age 75.Ī spokesperson for Marshall’s family indicated that complications from diabetes were the cause of the actress and filmmaker’s death, according to The Washington Post.