Penny Marshall was famous as an actress first. She was the Laverne in Laverne & Shirley, one of what felt like so many ‘80s comedies with a catchy theme song, weird supporting characters, increasingly oddball plots and a messy last couple of seasons as contracts and cast changes interfered. But for years, she “schlemiel, schlimazel”-ed down a Milwaukee street with Cindy Williams, who played Shirley. Just a couple of single girls.
It wasn’t until she became a director that Marshall came into her own. She directed the Whoopi Goldberg comedy Jumpin’ Jack Flash in 1986. And then in 1988, in only her second time out as a feature director, she made Big,starring Tom Hanks. A film of tremendous heart and surprising tenderness in spite of its absurd premise, Big has lasted and lasted as a document of childhood, as well as a fine chapter in the long history of 1980s comedies both admiring and dumping on corporate life. (Big came out the year after Wall Street and the same year as Working Girl. We were thinking a lot about how to feel about glittery office buildings and the people who work in them during and just after the Reagan years.)
Marshall made the enormously charming and much loved The Preacher’s Wife with Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston and Courtney B. Vance. She made Awakenings with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. Riding In Cars With Boys with Drew Barrymore. She directed television and continued to act.
But most likely, nothing will stick like A League Of Their Own.
Remembering Penny Marshall, The Director
Photo: Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
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