Her subsequent directing credits included Awakenings (1990), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, A League of Their Own (1992), Renaissance Man (1994), The Preacher's Wife (1996), and Riding in Cars with Boys (2001).

She also produced Cinderella Man and Bewitched (both 2005), and directed episodes of the television series According to Jim and United States of Tara.

Garry was christened Episcopalian, Ronny was Lutheran, and Penny was confirmed in a Congregational Church, because "[Mother] sent us anyplace that had a hall where she could put on a recital.

"[12] She grew up at 3235 Grand Concourse, the Bronx, in a building which was also the childhood home of Neil Simon, Paddy Chayefsky, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren.

[15] In 1967,[16] she moved to Los Angeles to join her older brother Garry, a writer whose credits at the time included TV's The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966).

She landed another small role in the biker film The Savage Seven (1968), as well as a guest appearance on the hit television series That Girl, starring Marlo Thomas.

In Marshall's final appearance on The Odd Couple, her character married her boyfriend, Sheldn ("they left the "o" off the birth certificate", she explains), played by Rob Reiner, her real-life husband.

The installment, titled "A Date with Fonzie",[23] 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).

[25] In 1983, while still filming Laverne & Shirley, Marshall resumed working with James L. Brooks when she guest starred on Taxi in a cameo appearance as herself.

In the Taxi episode "Louie Moves Uptown,"[citation needed] Marshall is turned down for residency in a new high-rise condominium in Manhattan.

She also made a cameo appearance alongside her brother Garry in the Disney Halloween-themed movie Hocus Pocus as husband and wife.

[32] Marshall was soon given the directorial job of the crime comedy Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) starring Whoopi Goldberg after the original director dropped out of the project.

Marshall described her leap into directing feature films as very hard to learn, likening it to "cramming four years of college into one semester."

[38] While at college, Marshall met Michael Henry, a football player, and left school at age twenty to marry him in 1963.

[45][46][47] Marshall was cremated and her ashes are interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles.

[48] Marshall's films tend to address contemporary issues in society such as coming of age, women’s accomplishments, and oppression of the mentally disabled.

[57] The movie exposes exciting victories and personal conflicts on the field, while, at the same time, building sisterhood and strong bonds among teammates.