Thanks for Making Our Dreams Come True

WITH COSTAR PENNY MARSHALL AS HER BESTIE ON THE LONG-RUNNING HIT, THE ACTRESS CREATED SOME OF THE HAPPIEST DAYS (AND NIGHTS) AMERICAN TV HAS EVER KNOWN

- TOM GLIATTO

LAVERNE & SHIRLEY'S CINDY WILLIAMS -1947-2023

Actress Cindy Williams already had a job in 1976 when she decided to take a shot at playing Princess Leia in the first Star Wars film. But her audition—unlike Carrie Fisher’s—was a disaster. She just couldn’t imagine herself as some girl in a galaxy far, far away. “I remember this dialogue that was impossible to say,” she later recalled. “It was like, ‘The Cretins on the planet...in the universe of the galaxy of...’ It went on and on.” Instead, from that year until 1982, she would be playing one of the most down-to-earth, relatable women in sitcom history: On Laverne & Shirley, the Happy Days spin-off that became a hit in its own right over eight seasons, she was Shirley Feeny, chipper, fresh-faced best friend to Penny Marshall’s wisecracking Laverne DeFazio.