There's something
innocent about Garry Marshall when he talks about Happy Days, the
1950s teen-based sit-com he created forty years ago this year. This
is fitting somehow for a writer, director and producer who himself
came of age in a post World War Two era of rock and roll and
high-school hops which he mythologised on a show that became a key
part of a nostalgia boom that's never really gone away.
Initially piloted as a
one-off episode of Love, American Style, Happy Days ran for 255
episodes between 1974 and 1985. The show's initial focus on Ron
Howard's straight-laced good guy Ritchie Cunningham was soon upstaged
by Henry Winkler's leather-jacketed tough guy Arthur 'The Fonz'
Fonzarelli, who stole the show enough to become a household name.
Thirty years since the
show ended, Happy Days – A New Musical opened in Glasgow last
night as part of its UK tour in a production written by Marshall
himself alongside Bugsy Malone composer, Paul Williams. Set around
the time of Series 4 of the TV series, Happy Days – The Musical,
which stars Ben Freeman, ex Bucks Fizz singer Cheryl Baker and former
Sugababe Heidi Range, focuses on Richie, Fonzie and the gang's
attempts to save their regular hang-out, Arnold's malt shop, from a
construction company's plans to turn it into a shopping mall.
This in itself speaks
volumes about how much Marshall's creative heart still resides in a
small town America unspoilt by the sort of commercialised landscapes
that are now taken for granted in more recent teen-based television.
It's this depiction of a simpler life too that Marshall sees as
crucial to Happy Days' enduring appeal.
“Who would've thought
we'd still be talking about it forty years later?” the 79-year old
says, the morning after Happy Days – A New Musical's opening night,
“but people seem to like nostalgia. Happy Days was always very
positive. It's certainly not a reality show, but it was based on a
lot of stuff. I grew up not too rich in the Bronx, and I was sick all
the time, so I dreamt up a lot of stuff. The original request was to
do something nostalgic that was set in the 1930s, but I grew up in
the 50s, when there were nice days, no drugs and everything was kinda
calm. How to make calm exciting was my job, but the first pilot for
the show didn't sell. They said who needs the 50s, but then a
wonderful film came out called American Graffiti, and everything
changed.”
American Graffiti was
future Star Wars director George Lucas' 1973 film about a group of
teenagers coming of age in the early 1960s. Crucially, one of the
cast was Ron Howard, who would go on to play Richie in Happy Days. A
year later, Henry Winkler appeared in The Lords of Flatbush, a
low-budget feature based around a group of teenagers in 1950s
Brooklyn. Winkler's performance could be viewed as a harder-edged dry
run for Happy Days, a template for Happy Days' more saccharine-based
approach had already been set by Grease, Warren Casey and Jim Jacobs'
1971 musical, which would go on to mirror the success of Happy Days
in its seminal 1978 film version starring John Travolta and Olivia
Newton John.
For Marshall, the son
of a tap dance teacher and an industrial film director whose career
began as a joke writer for assorted comedians before going on to
script The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lucy Show and a TV version of Neil
Simon's The Odd Couple , Happy Days was to lead to a big-screen
career of his own. Marshall would go on to direct Pretty Woman,
Frankie and Johnny, Runaway Bride and Princess Diaries.
Happy Days – A New
Musical first appeared in 2007, although it had been in development
for much longer.
“There were a lot of
challenges,” Marshall admits, “and we had to keep doing it till
we got it right. I have a theatre in Burbank in Los Angeles, so we
work-shopped it there. I had different companies telling me different
things, but I wanted the storyline to stay true to the spirit of the
series.”
Beyond the stage
musical, the legacy of Happy Days has left its considerable mark on
the film and TV world, with the programme spawning no less than eight
spin-off shows. While Laverne & Shirley featured Marshall's
sister, Penny Marshall, Mork and Mindy made the then unknown Robin
Williams a star. While Joanie Loves Chachi, Blansky's Beauties and
Out of the Blue fared less well, animated versions of Happy Days,
Laverne & Shirley and Mork and Mindy kept the spirit of the three
hit shows alive.
Happy Days is notable
too for many of its cast going on to be directors. Ron Howard left
the show in 1980 to concentrate on a career that has seen him direct
more than thirty features, including Splash, Frost/Nixon and How the
Grinch stole Christmas. As a producer too, Howard has made his mark,
and most recently was executive producer of TV drama, Arrested
Development.
Anson Williams, who
played Potsie Webber in Happy Days, has directed a stream of TV
shows, including Beverley Hills 90210, Sabrina The Teenage Witch and
Charmed. Given the nature of much of both men's work, it's clear who
their inspiration was.
“I learned in
show-business that you've gotta do everything,” says Marshall.
“Happy Days was a phenomenon that changed my life, and enabled me
to do other things, so I would encourage everyone on the show to do
the same. Five directors came out of that show, and Ron Howard went
on to become one of the best film directors around.”
While in London,
Marshall is clearly enjoying himself. After the first night of Happy
Days, “We went to a party and stayed out late, which was nice,”
while at the time of talking he was planning to see Stephen Ward,
Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1960s-set musical about the Profumo scandal
that presents an altogether more salacious image of the period that
directly follows the Happy Days era.
“Now it would have to
be done edgier, darker, more risque,” Marshall says of the TV show.
“In the series, they wouldn't even let us use the word 'virgin',
but we did our own issues. Richie had a motorcycle accident where if
he hadn't been wearing a helmet he would've died. In the end, if a
show is done well, then it works, and it doesn't matter if its edgy
or innocent.
While Marshall
expresses a desire to do a new show, “I don't know if I'd ever get
something as good as Happy Days, but you gotta keep trying.”
Happy Days – A New
Musical, King's Theatre, Glasgow, February 24th-March 1; His
Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, May 5-10; King's Theatre, Edinburgh, May
12-17.
ends
Garry Marshall – A
life onscreen
Garry Marshall was born
in the Bronx in New York in 1934, the son of a tap dance teacher and
a director of industrial films.
Marshall became a joke
writer for comedians such as Joey Bishop and Phil Foster, and became
a writer for The Tonight Show with Jack Parr.
In 1961 Marshall moved
to Hollywood, where he teamed up with writer Jerry Belson. Together
the pair worked on The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lucy Show, The Joey
Bishop Show and The Danny Thomas Show.
As creators and
producers, Marshall and Belson's first series was a show called Hey
Landlord, in 1966 and 1967. They then adapted Neil Simon's play, The
Odd couple, for television, before creating Happy Days, Laverne and
Shirley and Mork and Mindy on his own.
Marshall directed his
first film, Young Doctors in Love, in 1982, and scored a hit in 1984
with The Flamingo Kid. Since then, he has directed another fourteen
features, including Pretty Woman, Frankie and Johnny and, in 2011,
New Year's Eve.
Marshall has also
appeared in numerous TV shows as an actor, most recently in Two and A
Half Men.
This year Marshall was
awarded the Laurel Award for TV Writing Achievement from the Writers
Guild of America.
The Herald, February 25th 2014
ends
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