(13 November 1934 - 19 July 2016)
The actor, director, writer and producer Garry Marshall was born in New York to a tap dance teacher and a documentary film producer. He was the brother of actress and producer Penny Marshall and TV producer Ronny Marshall Hallin. He started as a journalist, writing a sports column, graduated to writing jokes for comedians and then scripts for TV shows featuring Jack Paar, Dick Van Dyke, Joey Bishop, Danny Thomas and Lucille Ball. His first TV series, written with Jerry Belson, were Hey, Landlord and Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. Marshall then created Happy Days (1974-84) for Henry Winkler, and later Laverne and Shirley (1976-83) for his sister Penny. Other TV successes included Mork and Mindy (1978-82) for Robin Williams and two more revivals of The Odd Couple (1982) and 2015). From the 1980s, however, Marshall was also directing and acting in films, beginning with Young Doctors in Love. He gave Tom Hanks a break in Nothing in Common, and hit a popular vein with Overboard for Goldie Hawn, Beaches with Bette Midler, Pretty Woman for Juliet Roberts, Frankie and Johnny for Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer, The Runaway Bride, again with Juliet Roberts plus Richard Gere and Héctor Elizondo who appeared in most of Marshall’s films including The Princess Diaries and its sequel, both with Anne Hathaway. His last three films were all sentimental comedies (Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve and Mother’s Day) which were pretty average movies but ones that seemed to please the punters on a Friday night. They were the commercial films that Hollywood thrives on, and Garry Marshall was the sort of fillmmaker who always kept both eyes on the box-office.
MICHAEL DARVELL
