‘Laverne & Shirley’ actor Cindy Williams dies at 75

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cindy Williams, who was among the most recognizable stars in America in the 1970s and 1980s for her role as Shirley opposite Penny Marshall’s Laverne on the beloved sitcom “Laverne & Shirley,” has died. She was 75.

Williams died in Los Angeles on Wednesday after a brief illness, her children, Zak and Emily Hudson, said in a statement released on Monday through family spokeswoman Liza Cranis.

“The passing of our kind, hilarious mother, Cindy Williams, has brought us insurmountable sadness that could never truly be expressed,” the statement said. “Knowing and loving her has been our joy and privilege. She was one of a kind, beautiful, generous and possessed a brilliant sense of humor and a glittering spirit that everyone loved.”

Williams worked with some of Hollywood’s most elite directors in a film career that preceded her fulltime move to television, appearing in George Cukor’s 1972 “Travels With My Aunt,” George Lucas’ 1973 “American Graffiti” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” from 1974.

But she was by far best known for “Laverne & Shirley,” the “Happy Days” spinoff that ran on ABC from 1976 to 1983 that in its prime was among the most popular shows on TV.

Williams played the straitlaced Shirley Feeney to Marshall’s more libertine Laverne DeFazio on the show about a pair of blue-collar roommates who toiled on the assembly line of a Milwaukee brewery in the 1950s and 1960s.

“They were beloved characters,” Williams told The Associated Press in 2002.

DeFazio was quick-tempered and defensive; Feeney was naive and trusting. The actors drew upon their own lives for plot inspiration.

“We’d make up a list at the start of each season of what talents we had,” Marshall told the AP in 2002. “Cindy could touch her tongue to her nose and we used it in the show. I did tap dance.”

Williams told The Associated Press in 2013 that she and Marshall had “very different personalities” but tales of the two clashing during the making of the show were “a bit overblown.”

The series was the rare network hit about working-class characters, with its self-empowering opening song: “Give us any chance, we’ll take it, read us any rule, we’ll break it.”

That opening would become as popular as the show itself. Williams’ and Marshall’s chant of “schlemiel, schlimazel” as they skipped along together became a cultural phenomenon and oft-invoked piece of nostalgia.

Marshall, whose brother, Garry Marshall, co-created the series, died in 2018.

Actor Rosario Dawson shared a video of the opening theme on Twitter on Tuesday.

“Singing this song with so much gratitude for both of you ladies,” Dawson tweeted. “Absolute gems. United again… Rest in Paradise Cindy Williams.”

The show also starred Michael McKean and David Lander as Laverne and Shirley’s oddball hangers-on Lenny and Squiggy. Lander died in 2020.