Los Angeles: American actor,
director, writer, and producer Garry Ken Marshall died at the age of 81 on
Tuesday from complications of pneumonia following a stroke at a hospital
in Burbank, California, his publicist Michelle Bega said in a statement.
A beloved figure in show
business, Marshall leaves behind a legacy as a hitmaker on television and in
films, a comedian with impeccable delivery, and a warm personality to
those he encountered.
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.
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 1960s, 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, and followed it up with
The Grasshopper (1970). But the two
men kept their hand in TV.
In 1970, they turned Neil Simon’s Broadway hit, The Odd Couple, into a sitcom 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 (1976-83),
which starred Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams, and Mork & Mindy (1978-82) with newcomer Robin Williams.
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.
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.
He concentrated on directing with his later films, including 1986’s Nothing in Common, with Tom Hanks and
Jackie Gleason; Overboard (1987); Beaches (1988); Pretty Woman (1990) and Dear
God (1996) with Greg Kinnear and Laurie Metcalf.
The Gere-Roberts pairing that helped make Pretty Woman an iconic 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. He followed it with Valentine’s Day (2010) and New Year’s Eve (2011). His final film Mother’s Day starring Julia Roberts,
Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Jason Sudeikis was released on April 29,
2016.
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 November 13, his publicist's statement said.
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