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My Mother Was Nuts: A Memoir
Most people know Penny Marshall as the director of Big and A League of Their Own. What they don’t know is her trailblazing career was a happy accident. In this funny and intimate memoir, Penny takes us from the stage of The Jackie Gleason Show in 1955 to Hollywood’s star-studded sets, offering up some hilarious detours along the way.
My Mother Was Nuts is an intimate backstage pass to Penny’s personal life, her breakout role on The Odd Couple, her exploits with Cindy Williams and John Belushi, and her travels across Europe with Art Garfunkel on the back of a motorcycle. We see Penny get married. And divorced. And married again (the second time to Rob Reiner). We meet a young Carrie Fisher, whose close friendship with Penny has spanned decades. And we see Penny at work with Tom Hanks, Mark Wahlberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Robert De Niro, and Whitney Houston.
Throughout it all, from her childhood spent tap dancing in the Bronx, to her rise as the star of Laverne & Shirley, Penny lived by simple “try hard, help your friends, don’t get too crazy, and have fun.” With humor and heart, My Mother Was Nuts reveals there’s no one else quite like Penny Marshall.
My Mother Was Nuts is an intimate backstage pass to Penny’s personal life, her breakout role on The Odd Couple, her exploits with Cindy Williams and John Belushi, and her travels across Europe with Art Garfunkel on the back of a motorcycle. We see Penny get married. And divorced. And married again (the second time to Rob Reiner). We meet a young Carrie Fisher, whose close friendship with Penny has spanned decades. And we see Penny at work with Tom Hanks, Mark Wahlberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Robert De Niro, and Whitney Houston.
Throughout it all, from her childhood spent tap dancing in the Bronx, to her rise as the star of Laverne & Shirley, Penny lived by simple “try hard, help your friends, don’t get too crazy, and have fun.” With humor and heart, My Mother Was Nuts reveals there’s no one else quite like Penny Marshall.
271 pages, Paperback
Published October 29, 2024
13 people want to read
About the author
Penny Marshall
19 books49 followers Penny Marshall was an American actress, director and producer. She found ‘70s sitcom success on “Laverne and Shirley” before stepping behind the camera for Hollywood hits like “Big” and “A League of Their Own".
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 17, 2025
Oh my gosh, what a fun book. You come out of reading this book, just loving PENNY MARSHALL even more than you did before. She passed away in December of 2018, at the age of only 75, from heart disease and diabetes. I'm so glad she wrote this book, though, published in 2012.
It is a fun, direct, and amusing book, with some interesting stories, such as when she survived an attempted robbery by a couple of hoods, one of whom recognized her and apologized for busting into her home. The other man, said, after being arrested, cuffed and sitting in the police cruiser: "I should have killed you when I had the chance." She kept her cool and never lost her composure during the event.
This is not a long book, at only 258 pages, with a 3 page Acknowledgements page that is worth reading. But this is a great book and comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
It is a fun, direct, and amusing book, with some interesting stories, such as when she survived an attempted robbery by a couple of hoods, one of whom recognized her and apologized for busting into her home. The other man, said, after being arrested, cuffed and sitting in the police cruiser: "I should have killed you when I had the chance." She kept her cool and never lost her composure during the event.
This is not a long book, at only 258 pages, with a 3 page Acknowledgements page that is worth reading. But this is a great book and comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Displaying 1 of 1 review