Interesting Sitcom Tidbit

I'm reading Garry Marshall's memoir, "My Happy Days in Hollywood". Marshall produced Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy, and then directed a bunch of stuff, including Beaches and Pretty Woman and all those shitty "holiday" themed movies that come out every holiday now.

I wasn't that excited to read it, but I needed something to read and the sample was appealing enough. The thing about Garry Marshall is that he seems to be a very positive, happy, upbeat man. He didn't seem like the type to write a juicy tell all. And as I read the book, that turned out to be true.

He covers Happy Days in a single chapter. That thing went 11 years. You could probably write 5 books about what went on with that show. He wrote a succinct, everyone was happy and the show was really fun to work on, chapter.

The same was true about everything else in his life. It was an easy read, but a little disappointing. I hate when people write about stuff and just kind of gloss over the details. "Oh, and then I sold the show, and we cast it, and then it went to number one!" Okay, but can you be a little specific? Tell us a horror story about Baio or something?

Anyway, the book was going along like this, and I had just resigned myself to not learning anything of note, and then Laverne and Shirley happened. And finally, Garry Marshall started talking some shit.

I didn't know this, but apparently that was the worst show to work on, maybe ever. A complete fucking nightmare. And the funniest part about it is that he created it and cast his sister in the lead role. He made her a giant star out of nothing. Gave her a huge career and tons of money. And yet she was a gigantic bitch and terrible to work with.

Unfortunately, this is still Garry Marshall, so even as writes how painful it was every day, he's still being sorta nice. Which can only mean that Laverne and Shirley was even worse than he's describing, which is pretty incredible.

An example of this:

Cindy Williams (Shirley) sued him for making her work too hard while she was pregnant for $20 million dollars. But Garry says the lawsuit got settled and they are "great friends to this day". Um, what?! She sued you! And you're buddies?

But that's Garry Marshall.

Still, pretty interesting.

One other fun fact: he directed Overboard, which as you know, I love. So props for that. Though no good stories about it, just Goldie Hawn was amazing and Kurt Russell was even amazinger.