Actor became a star for her role in ‘Laverne & Shirley’
LOS ANGELES — Cindy Williams, who played sweet, wide-eyed Shirley Feeney on the “Happy Days” spinoff “Laverne & Shirley,” died last week, her family said Monday.
She was 75.
Williams died Wednesday in Los Angeles after a brief illness, her children, Zak and Emily Hudson, said in a statement released to The Associated Press through a family spokeswoman.
“The passing of our kind, hilarious mother, Cindy Williams, has brought us insurmountable sadness that could never truly be expressed,” the statement said. “Knowing and loving her has been our joy and privilege. She was one of a kind, beautiful, generous and possessed a brilliant sense of humor and a glittering spirit that everyone loved.”
Williams was the optimistic foil to Penny Marshall’s wise-cracking Laverne DeFazio on the iconic sitcom, which starred two 1950s roommates working on the bottlecap assembly line at Milwaukee’s Shotz Brewery.
“When you can find those characters with attitudes who are in sync, they are funny and charming to watch. You see aspects of yourself in the characters’ attitudes,” Williams told The Times in 1993. “Usually in sitcoms, the characters you play are close to you. They are beats within yourself that you really play well.”
Though she might have appeared an expert at pratfalls when the show debuted in 1976, she was a novice to the sitcom genre. Before that, she trained in theater in high school and at Los Angeles Community College, then honed her skills when she was accepted by the Actors Studio West alongside Sally Field and Robert De Niro.
The Golden Globe-nominated actress appeared in George Cukor’s “Travels With My Aunt” and starred in George Lucas’ 1973 nostalgic coming-of-age comedy “American Graffiti” and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film “The Conversation.”
She also auditioned for Lucas’ “Star Wars” but lost the part of Princess Leia to Carrie Fisher.
She became friends with Garry Marshall’s younger sister, Penny Marshall, whom she met through mutual friends. The two were out-of-work actresses when they were hired by Francis Coppola’s Zoetrope company to write a prospective TV spoof for the Bicentennial.
They had been writing together for a few months when Garry Marshall called to ask if they would like to guest on his ABC series “Happy Days,” reuniting Williams with her “American Graffiti” co-star Ron Howard.
The women became household names after 1975, when their characters — two girls from the other side of the tracks — appeared on Garry Marshall’s sitcom for a double date with Richie (Howard) and Fonzie (Henry Winkler).
Co-created by Garry Marshall, Lowell Ganz and Mark Rothman, the spinoff followed the escapades of the blue-collar gals. It launched on ABC in January 1976 and soared to the top of the ratings, becoming the No. 1-rated show for the 1977-78 and 1978-79 seasons.
But Williams, who directed one episode, only stayed on the sitcom through 1982, when its final season began
Williams was born Aug. 22, 1947, in Van Nuys, Calif.