Carole Penny Marshall was born in the Bronx, New York City, New York, on October 15, 1943, to Marjorie and Anthony “Tony” Masciarelli, later Anthony Wallace Marshall, a director of industrial films and later a producer. Her father was of Italian descent, his family having come from Abruzzo. Marshall’s father changed his last name from Masciarelli to Marshall.
Marshall first appeared on a television commercial for Head and Shoulders beautifying shampoo. In 1968, Marshall accepted an offer from her brother, Garry Marshall, to appear in a movie he had written and was producing, called How Sweet It Is. She landed another small role in the film The Savage Seven, as well as a guest appearance on the hit television series That Girl, starring Marlo Thomas.
In 1970, Garry Marshall became the executive producer of the television series The Odd Couple. The following year, Marshall was added to the permanent cast to play a secretary, Myrna, and held the role for four years.
Garry Marshall, creator and then part-time writer for Happy Days, cast Marshall and Cindy Williams to guest appear on an episode of the show. The installment, titled “A Date with Fonzie”, aired on November 11, 1975 and introduced the characters Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney (played by Marshall and Williams, respectively). In that episode, Laverne and Shirley were a pair of wisecracking brewery workers who were dates for Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and Richie (Ron Howard). The pair were such a hit with the studio audience that Garry Marshall decided to co-create and star them in a successful spinoff, Laverne & Shirley (1976–1983).
At the encouragement of her brother, Marshall became interested in directing. While starring on Laverne and Shirley, she made her debut as a director and directed four episodes of that show as well as other TV assignments. In 1979, she directed several episodes of the short-lived sitcom Working Stiffs, starring Michael Keaton and James Belushi. She soon moved on to theatrical films, her first film being Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986) starring Whoopi Goldberg.
Marshall directed several successful feature films from the mid-1980s onwards, including Big (1988) starring Tom Hanks (the first film directed by a woman to gross over US$100 million), Awakenings (1990) starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, A League of Their Own (1992) with Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell, and The Preacher’s Wife (1996) starring Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston.
Marshall died in Los Angeles on December 17, 2018, at the age of 75.
Source: Wiki