Writer-director Marshall dies at 81
‘Larger than life, funnier than most’
LOS ANGELES, July 20, (Agencies): Writer-director Garry Marshall, whose deft touch with comedy and romance led to a string of TV hits that included “Happy Days” and “Laverne & Shirley” and the box-office successes “Pretty Woman” and “Runaway Bride,” has died. He was 81.
Marshall died Tuesday in at a hospital in Burbank, California, of complications from pneumonia after having a stroke, his publicist Michelle Bega said in a statement.
The director also had an on-screen presence, using his New York accent and gruff delivery in colorful supporting roles that included a practicalminded casino boss unswayed by Albert Brooks’ disastrous luck in “Lost in America” and a crass network executive in “Soapdish.”
“A great, great guy and the best casino boss in the history of film,” actorfilmmaker Brooks posted on Twitter.
Henry Winkler, who starred as Fonzie on “Happy Days,” saluted Marshall in a tweet as “larger than life, funnier than most, wise and the definition of friend.”
Richard Gere, who starred opposite Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman,” said in a statement that “everyone loved Garry. He was a mentor and a cheerleader and one of the funniest men who ever lived. He had a heart of the purest gold and a soul full of mischief. He was Garry.”
Marshall, brother of actress-director Penny Marshall, earned a degree in journalism from Northwestern University and worked at the New York Daily News. But he found he was better at writing punchlines.
“In the neighborhood where we grew up in, the Bronx, you only had a few choices,” Marshall said in a 1980s interview. “You were either an athlete or a gangster, or you were funny.”
He rejected retirement, serving as
The actor has battled serious substance abuse problems over the years but recently found work as a recurring character on a consultant on CBS’ 2015 reboot of “The Odd Couple,” starring Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon, and appearing in an episode this year as Oscar’s father, Walter. Among his final credits was “Mother’s Day,” a film released last April starring Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Roberts.
Entertainment
He began his entertainment career in the 1960s selling jokes to comedians, then moved to writing sketches for “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar in New York. He caught the eye of comic Joey Bishop, who brought him to Los Angeles to write for “The Joey Bishop Show.”
Sitcoms quickly proved to be Marshall’s forte. He and then-writing partner Jerry Belson turned out scripts for the most popular comedies of the ’60s, including “The Lucy Show,” “The Danny Thomas Show” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”
Marshall and Belson detoured into screenwriting in 1967 with “How Sweet It Is,” starring Debbie Reynolds, and followed it up with “The Grasshopper” (1970) with Jacqueline Bisset. But the two men kept their hand in TV.
In 1970, they turned Neil Simon’s Broadway hit, “The Odd Couple,” into a sitcom starring Jack Klugman and Tony Randall and produced by Marshall. It ran for five seasons and proved the beginning of a TV sitcom empire.
In January 1979, Marshall had three of the top five comedies on the air with “Happy Days,” which ran from 1974-84; “Laverne & Shirley” (197683), which starred Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams, and “Mork & Mindy” (1978-82) with newcomer Robin Williams.
“The New Odd Couple,” a reboot with African-American actors Ron Glass and Demond Wilson in the lead roles, aired from 1982-83 but was less
the upcoming television series “Shooter”, an adaptation of a book and film about a marksman drawn into a modern day conspiracy successful.
Marshall defended his body of TV work, which won more viewers than honors, in his 1995 autobiography, “Wake Me When It’s Funny,” written with his daughter, Lori Marshall.
“Critics have knocked me for targeting society’s lowest common denominator,” he wrote. “I believe that television was, and still is, the only medium that can truly reach society’s lowest common denominator and entertain those people who maybe can’t afford a movie or a play. So why not reach them and do it well?” he said.
Penny Marshall told The New York Times in 2001 that her brother “has a life. He’s not into the show business glitterati. If he has a hot movie, that’s great. But if he has something that doesn’t do great, he’s not around those people who won’t speak to you or will make you feel terrible.”
After cranking out what Marshall once estimated to be 1,000 sitcom episodes, he switched his focus to the big screen with 1984’s “The Flamingo Kid,” a coming-of-age story starring Matt Dillon, which Marshall wrote and directed.
Concentrated
He concentrated on directing with his later films, including 1986’s “Nothing in Common,” with Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason; “Overboard” (1987) starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell; “Beaches” (1988) with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey; “Pretty Woman” (1990) and “Dear God” (1996) with Greg Kinnear and Laurie Metcalf.
The Gere-Roberts pairing that helped make “Pretty Woman” a smash hit did the same for “Runaway Bride,” which reunited them in 1999. “The Princess Diaries” in 2001 was another winner, although Marshall suffered a flop with “Georgia Rule” (2007), starring Jane Fonda and Lindsay Lohan.
to assassinate the US president.
His manager Charles Lago declined comment about Tuesday’s arrest. MADRID, July 20, (AFP): US actress Sigourney Weaver, who burst to fame as Ellen Ripley in the Alien saga, will be handed a lifetime achievement award at the Spanish-speaking world’s leading film festival.
The Donostia award — named after the Basque word for San Sebastian, north east Spain, where the international festival takes place — has been given out each year since 1986 when it went to Gregory Peck.
Past recipients include Lauren Bacall, Al Pacino, Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Richard Gere and Woody Allen.
Organisers announced Tuesday that Weaver would receive the award on Sept 21 at the European premiere of “A Monster Calls”, a film in which she stars that will be screened at the festival but will not be competing for any awards.
Marshall is survived by his wife, Barbara, and the couple’s three children, Lori, Kathleen and Scott.
Funeral services will be private but a memorial is being planned for his birthday on Nov 13, his publicist’s statement said.
Garry Kent Maschiarelli was born in the Bronx, the son of a dance and a director of industrial films who would later become a producer on some of his son’s TV programs. He graduated from Northwestern U.’s Medill School of Journalism and began his career as a joke writer for comedians including Joey Bishop, then worked on the writing staff of “The Tonight Show With Jack Paar.”
Marshall also had a long acting career that began in the early 1960s. He played a hoodlum in the James Bond film “Goldfinger” and made appearances, most uncredited, in many of his film and TV projects. He had a recurring role on “Murphy Brown” as the head of the network and guested on shows ranging from “Monk” and “The Sarah Silverman Show” to “ER.” His many small film roles included a part in sister Penny’s “A League of Their Own” as a cheapskate baseball team owner, which he reprised in the brief TV series based on the movie. In his son Scott Marshall’s 2006 comedy “Keeping Up With the Steins,” Marshall had a small but notable role as the grandfather of the bar mitzvah boy who has adopted Native American customs.
Marshall also found the time for stage efforts. “Wrong Turn at Lungfish,” co-written with Lowell Ganz, played LA, Chicago and Off Broadway, and “The Roast,” co-penned with Jerry Belson, played Broadway in a production helmed by Carl Reiner in 1980. Marshall also wrote the play “Shelves,” and in 1997, he and his daughter Kathleen founded the Falcon Theater in Burbank.
Sizemore became a star in the late 1990s and early 2000s with acclaimed appearances in “Saving Private Ryan” and “Heat”.
He then developed serious substance dependency problems that devastated his movie career, left him homeless, sent him to jail and led to a failed suicide attempt. (AP)
LOS ANGELES:
Two musicians earned a greeting from legendary Hollywood film composer John Williams by playing his theme from “Star Wars” outside of his Los Angeles home.
A video of the performance was posted on YouTube by Michael Miller, himself a longtime TV composer. The clip shows him playing the famous theme on flugelhorn alongside 13-year-old trumpet player Bryce Hayashi last week on the sidewalk in front of Williams’ home.
The performance drew the composer to his door, and he later walked down to shake hands with the musicians.
Miller told The Associated Press he came up with the “wild and crazy” idea to take the teen he was mentoring to serenade the composer, who lived a couple houses down from Miller’s friend’s home.
It was the first time the two had performed the duet flawlessly, Miller said. (AP)