Marshall helped push a Lucy like hilarity down comedy's conveyor belt
TO RECALL the kind of success Penny Marshall had while playing the endearingly roughedged, pratfall-prone Laverne DeFazio for eight seasons on the hit ABC sitcom “Laverne & Shirley,” you almost have to go back and explain the thing that used to be called television.
What’s a “spinoff” show? What’s a Nielsen share? What did it mean to appear on the cover of TV Guide over and over again? What could be so appealing about two goofy, single Milwaukee women who share an apartment and work at a beer-bottling plant that practically every man, woman and especially child in America would tune in to watch their antics every Tuesday night, dragging out the TV trays for dinner, if need be?
Marshall died on Tuesday at 75 after a memorable career as both a popular TV star and the rare female movie director who got a chance to make big-budget Hollywood comedies, such as “A League of Their Own” and “Big.”
She played Laverne in the broadest possible way, at a time when the word broad could also still barely pass as a term of affection for a certain kind of independent, assertive woman. Do keep in mind: “Laverne & Shirley” premiered in 1976, but it was set in 1959. The show, along with its progenitor, “Happy Days,” was an early experiment in our culture’s ongoing bouts of premature nostalgia. (By the time series ended, in 1983, Laverne and Shirley had followed their dreams to California and the setting was 1967.)
Although “Laverne & Shirley” seemed a tad more concerned with its period details than “Happy Days,” to go back and look at either show now is to notice a warpy display of anachronisms. Watch as Laverne and Shirley comport to Eisenhower-era expectations; the show was obsessed with near-instances of marriage for either of these self-consciously single women, sometimes teasing audiences with double-wedding fiascoes that always got called off. Yet, in the same context, see also how Laverne and Shirley take charge of their decisions with liberated, ‘70s-like clarity. (“And we’ll do it our way — yes, our way,” extolled the show’s theme song. “Make our dreams come true.”)
Outwardly Laverne was a proud broad: pencil skirts, tight sweaters (always monogrammed over the left breast with her trademark, a stylishly cursive “L”) and colour-coordinated kerchiefs. A competitive force to be reckoned with in the bowling alley, Laverne could put a dime in a jukebox and tear up the dance floor. Yet it was the character’s insecurities and tenderness that endeared Laverne (and Marshall) to viewers. For all her bravado, Laverne was easily deflated by
Marshall played Laverne in the broadest possible way, at a time when the word broad could also still barely pass as a term of affection for a certain kind of independent, assertive woman.
embarrassment or loss.
On a condensed timeline of TV history, Marshall and her costar, Cindy Williams (as Shirley Feeney), essentially picked up where “I Love Lucy’s” Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance left all those chocolates strewn at the end of the conveyor belt. Marshall excelled at Ball’s type of physical comedy, ensuring Laverne would endure eight seasons of ludicrous bouts of overconfidence leading to humorous humiliation. Wrestling rings. Debutante balls. Modelling agencies. Lucy may have been funnier, but Laverne was stronger.
“I’m gonna rip that ‘L’ right off of her chest,” growls a rival at a pool hall, advancing menacingly toward Laverne.
“Touch my ‘L,’ sweetie and your teeth are going right to Peoria,” Laverne snarls back.
In directing movies, Marshall brought along what she learned from 178 episodes of sitcom predictability, which can, from another angle, be seen as a form of reliability. The characters are easily understood, relatable and vulnerable. A funny person hides a little pain. A tough person is really a softy. If Marshall had played Laverne as a multilayered, more complicated person (the way writers would be tempted to portray her in 2018), that character might never had made so many millions of friends. She won hearts by keeping things simple. — WP-Bloomberg