Remembering Penny Marshall

Penny Marshall was famous as an actress first. She was the Laverne in Laverne & Shirley, one of what felt like so many '80s comedies with a catchy theme song, weird supporting characters, increasingly oddball plots, and a messy last couple of seasons as contracts and cast changes interfered. But for years, she "schlemiel, schlimazel"-d down a Milwaukee street with Cindy Williams, who played Shirley. Just a couple of single girls.

It wasn't until she became a director that Marshall came into her own. She directed the Whoopi Goldbergin 1986. And then in 1988, in only her second time out as a feature director, she made , starring Tom Hanks. A film of tremendous heart and surprising tenderness in spite of its absurd premise, has lasted and lasted as a document of childhood, as well as a fine chapter in the long history of 1980s comedies both admiring and dumping on corporate life. (came out the year after and the same year as . We were thinking a lot about how to feel about glittery office buildings and the people who work in them during and just after the Reagan years.)