Even if Garry Marshall had put down his pen and stopped working entirely at the end of the 1970s, his career would still be hailed today with the cliche of legendary and his death would still feel as if it marked the similarly cliched end of an era.
After working as a joke writer for comedians such as Joey Bishop and Jack Paar (whose names alone are as redolent of mid-20th-century America as an Edsel), he smoothly moved into TV production.
In a near unrivalled run, he created The Odd Couple, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy, thereby helping to launch the careers of Ron Howard (who had been a child actor, but became an adult star after Happy Days), Henry Winkler, his sister, Penny Marshall, and, most of all, Robin Williams. It is almost impossible to imagine the world of 70s American television without Marshall.
But Marshall, a cheerful workaholic, didn’t stop there. In the 80s and 90s, he branched out into movies, making two of the most beloved staples of girls’ nights in: Bette Midler’s schlocky celebration of female friendship, Beaches, and Pretty Woman, a film as bizarre for its sexual politics as it is irresistible.
The 1987 film Overboard, in which a working-class handyman (Kurt Russell) tricks an amnesiac wealthy woman (Goldie Hawn) into being his wife, had an even more deranged storyline than Pretty Woman.
Yet both exemplify Marshall’s lucrative skill at taking the most unlikely material and, with his light and jaunty touch, turning it into something improbably joyous. One of his earlier and best movies, 1984’s The Flamingo Kid, starring Matt Dillon and Héctor Elizondo, about a working-class boy who becomes enamoured of the wealthy lifestyles of the people whose towels he cleans at a posh beach club, took the grit of class angst and turned it into a pearl of a coming-of-age film.
After establishing with Pretty Woman that the 90s would be the decade of big-budget romcoms, Marshall cannily followed his own trend. Runaway Bride was released in 1999, followed by The Princess Diaries in 2001, a movie that sensed the imminent Disney princess obsession. He was also a welcome presence as an actor, and it was always a thrill to hear his chewy Bronx accent on-screen, whether with a recurring role in the 90s TV show Murphy Brown, or a charming cameo, such as in Penny’s A League of Their Own in 1992. He maintained a wide-eyed eagerness to know what was hot with the kids up to the end, and recently appeared in cult TV shows Brooklyn Nine-Nine and BoJack Horseman.
Marshall’s holiday-themed movies, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve and Mother’s Day, have been mocked by everyone from film critics to Tina Fey. But the public liked them, and that’s all he ever cared about. The last of these came out this summer, starring Julia Roberts – his original Pretty Woman – because, even at the age of 81, Marshall just wanted to make people laugh.
His memoirs, Wake Me When It’s Funny and My Happy Days in Hollywood, about his professional life and his 53-year marriage to Barbara and their three children, proved that Marshall was, as those who watched his work had long suspected, that rare thing: a Hollywood legend who was also a genuine mensch.
