Penny Marshall

Carole Penny Marshall (born October 15, 1943) is an American actress, director, and producer. After playing several small roles for television, she was cast as Laverne DeFazio on the sitcom Laverne & Shirley, which ran from 1976 until 1983, during which Marshall was nominated for a Golden Globe award for her performance three times.

She progressed to directing films such as Big (1988), the first film directed by a woman to gross in excess of $100 million at the U.S. box office; Awakenings (1990), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture; and A League of Their Own (1992). She produced Cinderella Man (2005) and Bewitched (2005), as well as episodes of According to Jim (2009).

Early life

Carole Penny Marshall was born in New York City, New York, in 1943, to Marjorie Irene (née Ward) (1908-1983), a tap dance teacher who ran the Marjorie Marshall Dance School, and Anthony "Tony" Masciarelli (1906-1999), later Marshall, a director of industrial films and later a producer. She is the sister of actor/director/TV producer Garry Marshall and Ronny Hallin, a television producer. Her birth name, Carole, was selected because her mother's favorite actress was Carole Lombard. Her middle name was selected because her older sister, Ronny, wanting a horse in the Bronx, was saving her pennies; her mother chose the middle name in an attempt to console her.

Penny Marshall (journalist)

Penny Marshall is a British journalist, working for ITV News as Social Affairs Editor.

Early life and career

She is a graduate of the London School of Economics where she was active as a student journalist. Whilst at LSE she worked as a stringer for national newspapers and after graduating she became indentured as a trainee reporter on the Wimbledon News. In 1985 she joined ITN as a production trainee.

Marshall established herself as a television news foreign correspondent during the 1980s and 90s, when she was based in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. This work won awards, including an RTS, an EMMY, and a BAFTA.

Following the birth of her children, she chose to work part-time and also took a career break to bring up the family for 5 years. Marshall is an advocate of better and more flexible working arrangements for parents.

Detention camps in Bosnia, 1992

In the summer of 1992, Marshall, together with Channel 4 News' Ian Williams, were the first television journalists to uncover the Serb-run detention camps in Bosnia. Ed Vulliamy of The Guardian was also with the ITN teams. Their subsequent reports shown throughout the world, generated an international outcry. However, a witness for the defence at a subsequent war crimes trial in the Hague accused the team of faking their footage.