Penny Marshall Looks Back On Life — And The Movies — In Memoir 'My Mother Was Nuts'

How important was it for you to talk about these deeply personal events in your book?
Well, you want to set the record straight on certain things, because there are so many rumors. “You and Cindy…” Cindy just called me, she’s coming up tomorrow night!

It will be surprising for Laverne & Shirley fans to learn how strained your relationship became over the seasons.
It was anticlimactic at the end — I was very happy she got married and pregnant and all that, but her husband, I was not a fan of. And now they’re divorced! And as soon as I heard, I called her and said, “What do you need? Do you need a place to stay? Need a place to live?” Because you work with someone for that long, like any family you’re going to have disagreements along the way but still, we were together.

It seems like, of all the famous faces you mention in your book, the only single person who ever had a problem with you was Hunter S. Thompson, who kicked you while on opium at a party.
I didn’t know the man, and he kicked me! I’m not a gonzo journalist. All I know is the guy kicked me!

You also describe the fascinating story of how Robert De Niro almost starred in Big.
Because everyone turned it down! Tom [Hanks] turned it down. So I said, “Let me go a different way. Let me go with a real man — not a boy-man.” Bob’s a behavioral actor; he does behavior very well. I sent it to him and he wanted to do a commercial movie, he’d only done Marty [Scorsese] or Brian De Palma movies. And now he’s in every goddamn comedy, so don’t tell me he’s not funny! I knew he was funny because I knew him for years.

I don’t even know how to imagine Big starring De Niro…
It would have been street kid vs. white establishment, you know? They’ve got to live in an apartment, and he talks on the fire escape with his best friend. That’s not a big change. And I’d pay to see him dance on a piano. So I wasn’t that crazy! Once Bobby said yes, everyone wanted to do it again. Tom wanted to do it again, so I went to him first.

That worked out pretty well.
Tom’s great. I had done a Bosom Buddies so I knew Tom from that. He’d say, “Play yourself.” I don’t know what else to play!

What else did you learn from those times?
Sometimes a release date can kill you, like it did with Renaissance Man. Not that it was the best movie in the world, but put it out during the school year so English teachers will send their kids to see it. It wasn’t a bad movie! It started Mark Wahlberg’s career — he said, “I owe my life to you! I got out of underwear!” I didn’t know the Funky Bunch from a hole in the wall, but I knew him from the billboards because Calvin Klein went to my junior high. So I said, “Get me that kid.” Mark and I are still good friends. He’s a great guy. I tried not to take advantage with the rap. He wrote it, but his character wouldn’t have rapped.

You were also looking at Tupac Shakur for Renaissance Man.
I read Tupac [for the film]! He’s magnetic. He was amazing. And now they’re going to tour all these holograms — life is so weird.

Your favorite film of mine was A League of Their Own.
Thank you — I didn’t know there was this woman’s league, and my feeling was, if I don’t know it somebody else doesn’t know it. And I’m not the dumbest person in the world. I liked the story. I liked that these women had to go and fill in for the men, and they were embarrassed that they were good at things. I was not encouraged to be an athlete, you know? I wanted to be an Olympic runner, but my mother made me tap dance.

I was a tomboy growing up.
Me too!

So A League of Their Own really meant a lot to me. You did a wonderful thing for a whole generation of girls.
Well good, because I believe that girls should partake in sports. There’s nothing wrong with it. I watched the Olympics. I would have loved to have been a runner — not a hurdler! — because I was fast. But it wasn’t encouraged. But even real baseball players have seen A League of Their Own and they don’t bust me on the baseball, because I wouldn’t hire anyone that couldn’t play.

Sean Young and Demi Moore were at different times set to play the leads?
Demi at the beginning, I asked her if she could play and she said yes. We saw her play and she could play, but she was pregnant when we got around to doing it. So she literally got fucked out of the part. [Laughs] The other director wanted Sean Young, while I was off doing Awakenings.

And yet I can’t imagine it any differently.
I swear to God I’ve never started a movie and ended up with the same people there. Not the head-heads, I’m not talking about [Barry Diller] or someone like that, but the head of production. At Fox every week there was a new executive du jour. Mel Brooks used to say, “I can’t have that many lunches!”

What was the trick to navigating all the studio politics?
I was very innocent and naïve. When I doubt, I’d go to the head — I’d go to Diller. Because I knew him and he’d tell me the truth! And after em>Awakenings was theirs and he didn’t have the enthusiasm so I went and took it somewhere else, and when it came out he was very proud of me and sent me on a vacation with my daughter and my niece.

I love that Awakenings, out of all of your films, was the one that really changed things for you.
That, they didn’t expect from me. Jumpin’ Jack Flash, fine. Big, fine. But Awakenings, they went hmmm….

What would you like to be doing next?
I wouldn’t mind doing TV, on camera, and directing TV is good. I don’t do the movies they put money into, but if it’s a movie I love I’ll do it. But television’s faster.

Readers are going to feel like they know you so well, just from reading your book. It’s so open.
I’m an honest person and I say straightforward things.

Do you have a single regret about any choice you made in your life or career?
[Pauses] I regret I got cancer! But that’s from smoking, and that’s what I did in junior high. But when I got pregnant with Tracy it was 1963 — which hopefully it doesn’t go back to — there was, what, go to Juarez, ride a horse [in terms of options for women with unplanned pregnancies]… nothing was legal. I made my bed and I was going to sleep in it, so [first husband] Mickey said, “Let’s get married.” I regretted that I got pregnant but I’m glad that I have a wonderful daughter and three grandchildren.

I hope to have a life even a fraction as fully-lived as yours.
You will. Just go out and live it!

“My Mother Was Nuts” by Penny Marshall is available via Amazon Publishing/New Harvest September 2012. Read an exclusive excerpt here.

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