Very sad news out of Hollywood today:
Garry Marshall, the beloved film director and the creator of numerous beloved TV shows, has passed away.
He was 81 years old.
Access Hollywood was the first outlet to confirm this news, with sister Penny Marshall confirming her father’s passing to CBS News.
No other details regarding his death are available at this time.
Marshall created and executive produced some of the most popular sitcoms in small screen history; such as Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple and Mork & Mindy.
He rose to prominence as a movie director by helming Julia Roberts’ breakout hit, Pretty Woman.
It was released in 1990, earned Roberts an Academy Awards nomination and grossed $ 463 million around the globe.
His most recent film was the April release Mother’s Day, which reunited him with Julia Roberts.
The full list of movies Marshall directed would be too long to recite here, but among his best known pieces of work were:
Overboard (1987), Beaches (1988), Frankie and Johnny (1991), Dear God (1996), The Other Sister (1999), Runaway Bride (1999), The Princess Diaries (2001), Valentine’s Day (2010) and New Year’s Eve (2011).
Overall, Marshall developed and created 14 television programs and executive produced more than 1,000 half-hour episodes.
In 1970, he broke on to the scene when developed an adaptation of Neil Simon’s play “The Odd Couple” for ABC.
The show earned numerous Emmy Award nods for its stars and for its writing.
Marshall was later responsible for Happy Days, the top-rated show on television in 1976-1977.
“Both of-their-time and timeless, his shows are a gentle, generous, comic mirror held up to late mid-century America,” WGA West president Christopher Keyser said in January of 2014 when it was announced that Marshall would receive the guild’s Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement.
“And no one is a finer or funnier chronicler of friendship – male or female (or alien).”
Marshall personally earned five Emmy Award nominations and was the recipient of Women in Film’s Lucy Award in 1996 and the Producers Guild of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Television in 1998.
In 1997, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Science’s Hall of Fame.
Marshall is survived by his wife, Barbara, to whom he was married since 1963; son Scott, a film director; and daughters Lori, an actress and casting director, and Kathleen, an actress.
He is also survived by a number of grandchildren; and sisters Penny Marshall, an actress and film director, and Ronny Hallin, a TV producer.
We send our condolences to all who knew Garry Marshall well.
Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a movie-watching marathon to begin. We think we’ll start with Beaches…