Remembering Penny Marshall

Today we mourn the death of a woman who could act, direct and produce movies and make us laugh and love her all at the same time.

That woman would be the one-of-a-kind Penny Marshall, who died Monday, December 17, at the age of 75.

As Laverne she was the perfect foil to her roommate Shirley on the TV show named after both characters. As a director she equaled the masters with movies like “Big,” “Awakenings,” “A League of Their Own,” and “The Preacher’s Wife.”

In her autobiography, “My Mother Was Nuts -- A Memoir,”

Marshall recalled her happiness as a child playing with the other apartment kids on the sidewalks and in nearby vacant lots.

“I am not much different now,” she wrote. “I have never wanted to grow up and stop playing. In many ways, I haven’t. In my work and in my personal life, I still try to maintain a connection to the sense of play that I remember from my childhood. Those experiences taught me the lessons that came in handy later in my life:

“Try hard, play by the rules, help your friends, don’t get too crazy, and have fun.”

Keep playing, Penny. Keep playing.

“My Mother Was Nuts -- A Memoir” by Penny Marshall is available for checkout at MidPointe Library.

To see MidPointe’s collection of works by and about Penny Marshall, go to:

http://encore.middletownlibrary.org/iii/encore/search/C__SPenny%20Marshall__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=gold

Library cardholders can also access movies and TV shows on Hoopla, via the MidPointe Library website:

https://www.midpointelibrary.org/page/movies-and-tv