Left with a wife Barbara,
and three adult children Gary Marshall, the director of Pretty Woman and
Runaway Bride, has died at the age of eight-one.
The former journalist,
whose early hits included TV shows Happy Days, Mork and Mindy and Laverne &
Shirley, died in hospital in Burbank, California, of complications from
pneumonia after a stroke.
Hearing the news, Henry
Winkler, who starred as Fonzie in Happy Days, tweeted that Marshall was
"larger than life, funnier than most, wise and the definition of
friend".
Marshall began his
entertainment career in the 1960s, selling jokes to comedians and writing
sketches for a number of shows, including The Lucy Show and The Dick Van Dyke
Show.
His first show of his own
came in 1970 when he and his then writing partner Jerry Belson turned Neil
Simon's Broadway hit The Odd Couple into a sitcom starring Jack Klugman and
Tony Randall.
The show ran for five
seasons and was the start of a stellar TV career for Marshall who, in 1979, had
three of the top five comedies on air.
He later moved over to
directing full time and drew in big names for his films, including Tom Hanks in
Nothing In Common (1986), Overboard starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell
(1987) and Beaches with Bette Midler (1988).
He reached another stage of
stardom with Pretty Woman, a smash hit starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere
in 1990.
May his soul rest in peace
ReplyDeleteThat movie was epic rip
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