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Garry Marshall

Garry Kent Marshall (November 13, 1934 – July 19, 2016) was an American actor, director, writer, and producer. He was the creator of and the executive producer of Mork & Mindy with Dale McRaven and Joe Glauberg. Garry also created its parent series Happy Days and its other spin-offs Laverne & Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, and Joanie Loves Chachi, and also developed Neil Simon's 1965 play The Odd Couple for television, and directing Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, New Year's Eve, Mother's Day, The Princess Diaries, and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. He provided the voice of Buck Cluck in Chicken Little.

Biography[]

Garry Kent Marshall was born in The Bronx, New York, on November 13, 1934, the only son and the eldest child of Anthony "Tony" Masciarelli (later Anthony Wallace Marshall; 1906–1999), a director of industrial films and producer, and Marjorie Irene (née Ward; 1908–1983), the owner and teacher in a tap dance school. He was the brother of actress/director Penny Marshall and Ronny Marshall Hallin, a television producer. His father was of Italian descent, his family having come from San Martino sulla Marrucina, Chieti, Abruzzo, and his mother was of German, English, and Scottish ancestry. His father changed his last name from Masciarelli to Marshall before his son Garry was born. .

He attended De Witt Clinton High School and Northwestern University, where he wrote a sports column for The Daily Northwestern, and was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. Beginning in 1956, Marshall served a stint in the U.S. Army as a writer for Stars and Stripes and Seoul News, and was production chief for Armed Forces Radio Network; serving in Korea.

Marshall married Barbara Sue Wells on March 9, 1963. They had three children, including Scott Marshall and Lori Marshall.

Career[]

Marshall started his career as a joke writer for such comedians as Joey Bishop and Phil Foster and became a writer for The Tonight Show with Jack Paar.[1] In 1961, he moved to Hollywood, where he teamed up with Jerry Belson as a writer for television. The pair worked on The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Joey Bishop Show, The Danny Thomas Show, and The Lucy Show. Their first television series as creator-producers was Hey, Landlord, which lasted one season (1966–67). Then they adapted Neil Simon's play The Odd Couple for television. On his own, Marshall created Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley (starring his sister Penny), and Mork & Mindy, which were produced by his associates Thomas L. Miller, Robert L. Boyett, and Edward K. Milkis.[2] He was also a co-creator of Makin' It,[3] which the three men also produced.

In the early 1980s, he met Héctor Elizondo while playing basketball and became great friends. Elizondo appeared in every film that Marshall directed, beginning with his first feature film Young Doctors in Love. Elizondo once noted that he is written into all of Marshall's contracts whether he wanted to do the film or not.[4]

In the opening credits of Exit to Eden (their eighth film together), Elizondo is credited "As Usual ... Hector Elizondo".[5] In 1984, Marshall had a film hit as the writer and director of The Flamingo Kid.[6] Marshall wore many hats during this period of his career: Most of his hit television series were created and executive produced by him. His first producing assignment came with Hey, Landlord in 1966. He stepped up the very next year, producing The Lucy Show.[7] Then came successes in producing The Odd Couple, Laverne and Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, Mork & Mindy, Angie, and Happy Days. He launched independent productions through his theater (The Falcon in Toluca Lake) and in association with productions launched with talent he was grooming and working with for years.

Mork & Mindy[]

Mork & Mindy came into being almost solely on the back of Garry Marshall wanting to hold as wide an audience as he could for Happy Days. When he found is eldest son, Scott, was no longer all that interested in the show he asked him why and found that the youngster thought it not that interesting. When he asked his son what would appeal to him, Scott replied, aliens. The year being 1977, Star Wars had just come out and not only rocked the box office, changing the face of Hollywood forever, but it had grabbed hold of an entire generation's imagination. Wanting to catch a hold of a little of that zeitgeist, Marshall approached a (highly dubious) writers room and asked them to come up with an alien character for an episode of the show.

Once the character of Mork was created by writer Joe Glauberg, and veteran director Jerry Paris had come up with the idea of making his visit a seeming 'dream' to not upset the realism of Happy Days too much, a fraught search for an actor to actually play the 'out there' alien began. Actors turned it down, or were lost to other projects before the unknown Robin Williams was spotted and suggested by Marshall's sister Ronny Hallin, who aside from her production duties on Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, had also been working as a casting director.

One short whacked out in office audition with Garry Marshall, Mork was not only found but given a level of exuberance, wildness and endearing-ness that wasn't in the pages. Something everyone could sense during rehearsals, the Happy Days cast blown away by the newcomers sense of comedy and energy. The audience too, with the debut of Mork bringing in more fan mail than any guest star on a show before or since. And leaving Marshall in no doubt that he had a hot property on his hands. Something ABC was highly receptive to.

To the point that when Marshall, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, spotted Pam Dawber from her work on the lot at Paramount, and cobbled together a less than 20 dollar 'pilot' from Mork's appearance and Dawber's failed pilot Sister Terri, sending it to the Network with the pitch, "Earth Girl meets Alien" pitching his living with her and their having a 'nice little romance' as he learned about Earth ways, without any kind of script, and without the two proposed leads ever having met, just the feeling that 'these two people need to work together', the Network actually picked it up, trusting Marshall and the word of mouth on Williams. Something pretty unprecedented.

Entrusting the show to colleague Bruce Johnson and Dale McRaven, Marshall oversaw the production as Executive Producer, giving him his third bona fide extant hit at ABC and making stars of both Robin Williams and Pam Dawber.

'Appearances' in the Show[]

Robin Williams/Mork does impersonations of Garry Marshall twice in the show:

Death[]

On the morning of July 19, 2016, Marshall died at a hospital in Burbank, California at the age of 81 due to complications of pneumonia after suffering a stroke.[8][9]

News of his death spread worldwide and many celebrities paid tributes to Marshall.[10]

References[]

  1. "Writer-director Garry Marshall dies at age 81". Retrieved on July 20, 2016. 
  2. Staiger, Janet (October 1, 2000). Blockbuster TV: Must-See Sitcoms in the Network Era (en). NYU Press. ISBN 9780814783511.
  3. Makin' It | TV Series | 1978 (en-US). Hollywood.com (February 3, 2015).
  4. Kung, Michelle. "Loyal Subject", Entertainment Weekly, August 20, 2004. 
  5. Hector Elizondo.
  6. Eisenberg, Eric (September 20, 2012). Brett Ratner Producing Remake Of The Flamingo Kid. CINEMABLEND.
  7. The Museum of Broadcast Communications - Encyclopedia of Television - Marshall, Garry. Retrieved on July 20, 2016.
  8. "TV, film legend Garry Marshall dies at 81", USA Today, July 19, 2016. Retrieved on July 19, 2016. 
  9. "Director Garry Marshall Dead At 81", The Huffington Post (.com), July 19, 2016. Retrieved on July 19, 2016. 
  10. 'The Odd Couple' Will Honor Garry Marshall with All-Star Tribute. Retrieved on November 20, 2016.

External links[]

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