{"id":951,"date":"2018-12-30T02:46:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-30T02:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drmirkin.com\/2018\/12\/30\/penny-marshall-death-by-diabetes\/"},"modified":"2018-12-30T02:46:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-30T02:46:00","slug":"penny-marshall-death-by-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/?p=951","title":{"rendered":"Penny Marshall, Death by Diabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\"pennyThis is the story of a brilliant and highly successful lady who thought that she was stupid, incompetent and unattractive.  Penny Marshall was an outstanding actress, director and producer.  In the 1970s, she received three nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series Musical or Comedy for playing Laverne DeFazio in the sitcom Laverne & Shirley<\/em>.  In the 1980s and 1990s, she became the first woman to direct films that grossed more than $100 million (Big<\/em> in 1988 and A League of Their Own<\/em> in 1992).  Her 1990 film, Awakenings<\/em>, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. She also became a very successful television director and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.<\/div>\n
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\n\tShe broke just about every rule for healthful living and died at the young age of 75, on December 17, 2018, from "complications of diabetes."  In her TV sitcoms Marshall appeared very slim, but over the years behind the camera she became obese.  She did not exercise, smoked heavily and took a variety of drugs. She admitted to Matt Lauer on the Today Show that she had used cocaine, marijuana and Quaaludes in the past and at age 55, she checked into a substance-abuse program for addiction to prescription drugs.  <\/div>\n
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\n\tA Life in Show Business<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n\tShe was born Carole Penny Marshall in 1943 in the Bronx to a mother who was a tap-dance teacher and a father who was an industrial film director and producer.  Her older brother, Garry, became a comedy writer and her sister Ronny became a casting director and producer.   Marshall's performing career started at age three in tap dance recitals, but she grew to be a tomboy who would have preferred to be out in the streets playing ball with the boys. She said she hated dance lessons, yet the constant performances did give her confidence and a sense that she was able to entertain people. <\/div>\n
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\n\tShe was a very mediocre student in high school and ended up at the University of New Mexico where at age 19 she became pregnant with her daughter, Tracy.  She left college to marry the football-playing father, Michael Henry, but they divorced three years later.  At age 24, she moved to Los Angeles to be with her brother Garry, who was thriving as a script writer for The Dick Van Dyke Show<\/em>.  Penny's first TV job, a shampoo commercial, made her feel even more insecure about herself. Farrah Fawcett played the beautiful girl with beautiful hair, while Penny Marshall was the "homely" girl whose hair was drab because she did not use that shampoo. <\/div>\n
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