Groundbreaking director Penny Marshall’s legacy and net worth

• Actress and director Penny Marshall died on Tuesday from diabetes-related complications.

• She’s the first female director to break $100 million in domestic ticket sales.

• Marshall’s net worth is estimated to be $45 million.

Actress and director Penny Marshall passed away at the age of 75 on Monday night in her Hollywood Hills, Calif. home due to diabetes-related complications.

Best known for her work both in front of and behind the camera, she was a personality in a league of her own. With an unmistakable Bronx accent, her legacy will live on through the blockbuster films she directed, like “Big” and “A League of Their Own.” She will perhaps be remembered most for her portrayal of Laverne DeFazio in the 1970s TV sitcom “Laverne & Shirley.”

Penny Marshall Net Worth: $45M

All of the success from her career amount to an estimated $45 million fortune, according to Celebrity Net Worth.

Birthdate: October 15, 1943
Died: December 17, 2018
Net worth: $45 million
Primary sources of income: Acting and directing
Career highlights: Three Golden Globe nominations; first female director to break $100 million in domestic ticket sales

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Penny Marshall Personal Life

She was born as Carole Penny Marshall in 1943 in the Bronx. In the Marshall family, entertainment was a family affair; her father was a film producer and director and her mother was a tap dance teacher and actress. Marshall was vocal about the complicated relationship she had with her mother and it became the subject of her memoir, “My Mother Was Nuts,” published in 2012. Her older brother was the late Garry Marshall and she attributed the bulk of her success to him.

Following high school, Marshall left the Bronx to study psychology at the University of New Mexico. It was there she became involved with her classmate Michael Henry. When she got pregnant at age 19, the two married in 1963. The young mom ultimately dropped out of school and the pair divorced two years later.

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Penny Marshall Career

Marshall and her daughter Tracy — who would later become an actress, too — relocated to Los Angeles in 1967, and she began taking acting lessons while working as a secretary. Life then imitated art and one of her first acting gigs came in 1971 when she played a secretary on TV’s “The Odd Couple,” for which her father and brother worked as producers. Garry then created “Laverne & Shirley” and during the show’s eight seasons, she secured three Golden Globe nominations.

It was only three years after the finale of “Laverne & Shirley” that Marshall tried her hand at directing movies. A serendipitous stroke of luck arrived in 1986 when she was approached at the last minute to direct “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” a comedy starring Whoopi Goldberg.

Just two years later, she struck gold with “Big” and became the first woman director to achieve the distinction of having a movie gross over $100 million domestically. She went on to direct “A League of Their Own,” “Renaissance Man,” “Awakenings,” “The Preacher’s Wife,” and “Riding in Cars with Boys.”

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