The Marshall siblings grew up with a filmmaker father and a dance teacher mother whose disapproval Penny felt early on. “She was too bright for the territory,” Garrytold PEOPLE in 1996of Penny’s childhood in the Bronx. “There was nothing much for her to do.”
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In her early years in Hollywood, Penny was pigeonholed as unattractive,The Washington Postreported.
“She’d come home in tears,” Garry later toldThe New York Times. “I said: ‘They’ll learn to like you. They just don’t understand you yet. They will someday.'”
Penny and Garry Marshall.Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
From 1971 to 1975, she played secretary Myrna Turner inThe Odd Couple. In 1975, she debuted herHappy Dayscharacter Laverne DeFazio, a part she would revisit inLaverne &Shirley. (Garry and Penny’s sister Ronny was a casting director and their father was a co-producer forLaverne & Shirley.)
Garry also secured Penny the opportunity to direct four episodes ofLaverne & Shirley, a prelude to her success as a movie director.
“My brother gave me a life,” Penny told Garry’s son Scott forEntertainment Tonightmonths after Garry’s 2016 death. “It’s not many people who have a brother who give them a life. He gave me a life and I appreciate it and I tried to not let him down.”
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In aninterviewfor theTelevision Academy Foundation, she once said, “I wouldn’t have a career if it wasn’t for my brother. Let’s be honest, he’s the one who pointed me in this direction. He got me parts. I didn’t know at the beginning they hired me so that … he would rewrite, punch up a script, the episode.”
Penny had no issue with getting a boost from her famous brother. “This is a factory business,” she told PEOPLE in 1988. “Of course the sons and daughters of people in it are going to go in it.”
Their professional relationship wasn’t all smooth sailing. In 2012, Garry toldThe New York TimesMagazinethatLaverne & Shirley“was my worst show experience.”
When the interviewer expressed surprise that Garry and Penny still talked, Garry replied, “The ’70s were druggy years on a lot of shows. It was just a mess, but of course I still talk to her. I don’t think you can tell your family that you can’t come in the house. I’ve always tried to make people happy — the only one I totally didn’t was my sister.”
Ronny Marshall, Garry Marshall and Penny Marshall.Bei/REX/Shutterstock
Penny’s 2016 interview forEntertainment Tonighttook place on the set ofThe Odd Couplereboot in an episode that paid tribute to Garry. The episode marked her last time onscreen, according toThe New York Times.
source: people.com
