Rant #2,284: Making Our Dreams Come True

That was the name of the theme song sung by Cyndi Greco for the situation comedy "Laverne and Shirley," one of the most popular sitcoms in the country in the mid 1970s, a show that has lived on in reruns the past 40-plus years.

The song reached up to No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, but "Laverne and Shirley" did even better--it was the No. 1 sitcom in the country during its early years, supplanting the show that started it all for the two Milwaukee-based ladies, as a spin-off of "Happy Days."

Of course, the mid 1970s was the last time that the country's TV viewing could be most accurately measured by network viewing, and network viewing only. Cable TV had pretty much just started to rear its head, and at that time, cable TV basically featured movies, wrestling matches, and tractor pulls.

So when a show reached the upper echelons of the Top 20, pretty much everyone watched it, and yes, pretty much everyone who was watching TV at that time was watching "Laverne and Shirley."

Penny Marshall, who portrayed Laverne DeFazio on the show, died yesterday, at the age of 75, of diabetes. She had been rumored to have been on her deathbed for the past few years, reportedly having cancer that was spreading through her body--she was a heavy smoker throughout most of her life--and she succumbed yesterday.

She was the sister of TV producer Garry Marshall, and her brother introduced her to the TV world as Myrna Perna, the secretary of Oscar Madison on "The Odd Couple."

Penny had actually had some small roles in a few movies, including "The Savage Seven," before her introduction to the small screen, but she was far from a seasoned actress at time time, playing against two of the most seasoned actors in show biz, Jack Klugman and Tony Randall. Although she was only on the screen for a few minutes each episode that she was in, there was something about her deadpan delivery as the obviously non-sexy secretary of the woman-chasing Madison that made even her briefest appearances memorable, and she often stole scenes from Klugman in particular.

Garry Marshall moved on to "Happy Days," the breakout show supposedly about an earlier, more innocent time in our country, and one episode dealt with Fonzie meeting up with two Milwaukee chicks, one of them Laverne, played by Penny Marshall, and the other Shirley, played by Cindy Williams.

The characters--"tough" girls with hearts of gold--were so good that ABC morphed them into their own series, about two working girls who try to make it during the same period in our country's history.

Like on "Happy Days," the show kind of lost its way about what era it was in, but it continued to delight audiences, even when Williams left the show in its last season.

Marshall went into directing films, and directed such movies as "A League of Their Own" about a women's professional baseball league during the war years of the 1940s, and directed several other movies, including "Big," Awakenings" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash." She entered directing on the "Flash" movie at the encouragement of her brother. The film's original director quit or was dismissed, and Garry pretty much threw out the gauntlet to his sister, who finished the film never having directed a film before, and the rest is history.

Penny Marshall, one TV icon of the time, was married for a couple of years to another TV icon of that era, Rob Reiner of "All In the Family." It was her second marriage, and she had a child in her first marriage, who was adopted by Reiner and took his name. Today, actress Tracy Reiner is the spitting image of her ... adopted dad.

In later years, the Bronx-born Marshall was a ubiquitous presence at Los Angeles Lakers games, along with Dyan Cannon and Jack Nicholson.

Most younger people probably don't know who Penny Marshall was, but to the Baby Boomers, she was one of our most beloved performers, and she will be missed.

"Schlemeezel, Schlemozzel, Hoffenfeffer Incorporated!" indeed.