03/22/2026
Her mother called her sloppy and compared her to her prettier sister. Hollywood said she wasn't leading lady material. Then Penny Marshall became the first woman to direct a $100 million film.
This is the story of Penny Marshall—and how being underestimated became her superpower.
Carole Penny Marshall was born on October 15, 1943, in the Bronx, New York, into a family where show business and dysfunction were equally present. Her father owned a dance school. Her mother, Marjorie, was a strict, demanding dance instructor who had specific ideas about what success looked like—and Penny didn't fit the mold.
Marjorie had three children: Ronny, Penny, and Garry. Ronny was the beautiful one, the graceful dancer, the daughter who met their mother's exacting standards. Penny was the awkward one—clumsy in dance class, too loud, too messy, too much.
Her mother didn't hide her disappointment. She called Penny "sloppy." She compared her unfavorably to Ronny. She made it clear that Penny would never be the pretty, polished daughter she'd wanted.
The message sank deep: You're not good enough. You're not the right kind of girl. You don't measure up.
Penny believed it for years.
She got married young to Michael Henry, had a daughter named Tracy, and got divorced. She moved to Los Angeles in the late 1960s to be near her brother Garry, who was trying to make it as a writer and producer in Hollywood.
Garry Marshall would go on to create some of the most successful TV shows of the 1970s. But in the early days, he was just another struggling writer trying to get his sister small acting roles.
Penny started getting bit parts—a line here, a scene there. She wasn't conventionally beautiful by Hollywood standards. She had a distinctive Bronx accent. Her comedy was sharp, unpolished, real. Casting directors didn't know what to do with her.
Then Garry created Happy Days, and he cast Penny in a small guest role as Laverne DeFazio, a wisecracking brewery worker. She appeared in one episode with her friend Cindy Williams, who played Shirley Feeney.
The audience reaction was immediate and overwhelming. People loved Laverne and Shirley—the tough-talking, working-class women who didn't fit the pretty, polite sitcom mold. ABC ordered a spinoff.
Laverne & Shirley premiered in 1976. Network executives were skeptical. Penny wasn't a traditional TV star. She wasn't glamorous. She didn't look like Mary Tyler Moore or Farrah Fawcett.
The show became a massive hit—at one point, the most-watched show on television.
Penny's Laverne was unapologetically herself: loud, messy, loyal, funny, desperately trying to find love and success while working a dead-end job. She wasn't a s*x symbol. She wasn't sophisticated. She was real in a way TV rarely allowed women to be.
But success didn't mean peace.
Behind the scenes, Laverne & Shirley was a war zone. Penny and Cindy Williams—best friends who'd created the show together—began feuding bitterly. They fought over scripts, screen time, billing, creative control. The tension became so toxic that by the final seasons, they could barely speak to each other.
Penny clashed with directors. She argued with network executives. She had strong opinions about what was funny and what wasn't, and she didn't back down. Some called her difficult. She called herself honest.
Off camera, Penny was struggling. She smoked heavily. She drank too much. She went through another divorce—this time from Rob Reiner, the actor and director she'd married in 1971 and divorced in 1981. Her personal life was messy, chaotic, never quite under control.
But she kept working.
In 1986, Penny decided she wanted to direct. Hollywood had a simple response: No.
Female directors were virtually nonexistent in major studio films. The industry's position was clear: women couldn't handle big budgets, couldn't manage crews, couldn't deliver commercial hits. Directing was a man's job.
Penny didn't care what they thought.
She got her first directing break with Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), starring Whoopi Goldberg. The studio interfered constantly, re-editing behind her back. The film was a modest success, but Penny knew she could do better.
Then came Big (1988).
The script was about a 12-year-old boy who wishes to be big and wakes up in an adult's body, played by Tom Hanks. It was sweet, funny, emotionally resonant. Penny saw something special in it.
Studio executives were nervous. A female director helming a major studio comedy with a big star and a significant budget? It was risky. But Penny fought for the job and got it.
She directed Tom Hanks with a light touch, letting his natural charm shine. She created iconic scenes—the FAO Schwarz piano sequence, the trampoline scene, the painful moment when Josh realizes he wants to be a kid again. She balanced comedy and heartbreak perfectly.
Big was released in June 1988. It was a phenomenon. Critics loved it. Audiences loved it. Tom Hanks received an Oscar nomination. And the film grossed over $151 million worldwide.
Penny Marshall became the first woman in history to direct a film that earned over $100 million at the box office.
Her reaction was vintage Penny: understated, self-deprecating, refusing to make a big deal out of it.
But the achievement was monumental. She'd shattered a barrier that Hollywood insisted didn't exist because women supposedly couldn't direct commercially successful films.
Four years later, Penny did it again.
A League of Their Own (1992) told the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II. It starred Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, and Rosie O'Donnell. It was a sports movie, a comedy, and a deeply moving story about women proving they belonged.
The film grossed over $132 million and became a cultural touchstone. "There's no crying in baseball" entered the lexicon. The movie showed millions of people a piece of history they'd never known—that women played professional baseball and were damn good at it.
Penny went on to direct Awakenings (1990), Renaissance Man (1994), and Riding in Cars with Boys (2001). She became one of the most commercially successful directors of her era—male or female.
But she never forgot where she came from.
In her 2012 memoir My Mother Was Nuts, Penny wrote honestly about her difficult relationship with Marjorie, about feeling like the disappointing daughter, about carrying that sense of not being good enough into her adult life.
Penny Marshall died on December 17, 2018, at age 75, from complications of diabetes.
Her legacy isn't just the films she made or the barriers she broke. It's what she represented: the girl who wasn't pretty enough, polished enough, or "right" enough—who succeeded anyway.
She didn't try to fit Hollywood's mold. She made Hollywood make room for her exactly as she was—Bronx accent, messy hair, sharp tongue, and all.
Every quirky, unconventional, underestimated woman who came after her walked through doors Penny kicked open.
She proved you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be undeniably, unapologetically yourself.
