My Happy Days in Hollywood (14 page)

My relationship with Ron Howard began before
Happy Days
. I had known him since he was a little kid on
The Andy Griffith Show
at Desilu Studios. Sometimes I would throw a baseball with him during rehearsal breaks. From the time he first appeared on television, he had the dream temperament of an actor. His parents, Jean and Rance Howard, raised him far from a life of hysteria and drama. So his personality was on an even keel, and not subject to the slightest high or low. If I had to pick the perfect actor to work with on a sitcom, Ron was it. He reminded me of a professional basketball player. He had the ability to shoot the ball and score but also the strength and focus to pass the ball to others to let them score, too. Near the end of the show we would have quiet talks about directing, and I knew he would probably go on to another career. But to have him on
Happy Days
for as long as we did was a gift not only to the show but also to me and the other actors.

Before I met Tom Bosley, who played Howard Cunningham, he was a talented Broadway actor; Marion Ross, who played Marion Cunningham, was an eccentric actress, and a Scorpio, like me. On the show Tom and Marion could make scenes funny even when they weren’t quite funny enough on the written page. Erin Moran graduated high school from the studio school while doing the series, and she was the only one in her class. She supported her entire family, and in exchange her
Happy Days
family tried to support her and watch over her on the lot. Anson Williams, Donny Most, Scott Baio, and other supporting cast members were as happy as the stars.

When some stars left we replaced them with others, for instance, when Al Molinaro took over Arnold’s from Pat Morita. When we
went to cast Ron Howard’s onscreen girlfriend, we let his real-life girlfriend Cheryl approve the actress Lynda Goodfriend. Late in the run of the series we were still bringing in great additions, such as Cathy Silvers and Ted McGinley. To be on a hit show was something you always dreamed of as an up-and-coming actor, and these kids were living the dream, but they weren’t destructive with their money or their talent. I can’t say this for the sitcoms I would create later on, but the cast of
Happy Days
was as kind, nice, and humorous as the characters they played.

Despite the fact that our cast was nice, our scripts were not always simple. We could tackle complex subjects, like nuclear war. The first season we aired an episode called “Be the First on Your Block” about Howard’s decision to buy a bomb shelter. For many families in America the first time their kids heard the term
bomb shelter
was on
Happy Days
. I remember receiving letters from college professors saying they mentioned the episode in their history classes because some students didn’t know what a bomb shelter was. They watched the Cunningham family grapple with the dilemma of which of their friends to invite into the shelter should a nuclear attack happen. That episode made me realize something: Having a hit show was powerful, and we had to learn to wield that power wisely.

Some of our episodes reflected the direction of the show. For example, as Fonzie rose in popularity during the third season, we moved him into the spare room above the Cunningham garage in an episode called “Fonzie Moves In.” Other episodes reflected my own life. I had gone through painful knee surgery, so I had Fonzie do the same in the two-part episode “Fearless Fonzarelli” when he crashed his motorcycle. There are a few episodes that I look back on as gold because they changed so many actors’ lives forever and were remembered by audiences as being extraspecial. One of those was “A Date with the Fonz,” when my sister and Cindy Williams first appeared as Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney.

America loved the episodes with Pinky Tuscadero and Fonzie as well as Fonzie’s special friendship with Mrs. Cunningham. When Pinky, a girlfriend from Fonzie’s past, was reunited with Fonzie, it was talked about in the sports pages. Before a tennis match a
reporter asked Arthur Ashe who was going to win and Arthur said, “I don’t know but we are going to do it fast so we can go home and watch Pinky Tuscadero.” With her pink leather outfit and matching motorcycle gear, Roz Kelly as Pinky was someone special to watch every time she appeared on
Happy Days
.

Another gold episode for me was in the fifth season, when Robin Williams first appeared as Mork in “My Favorite Orkan.” When Robin walked into the Cunningham living room and launched into his Orkan voice, everyone on the set got goose bumps because we could see immediately that he had the potential to be a big star. The episode in which Fonzie got a library card made library card requests jump 500 percent in one month across the United States. Fonzie had a lonely Christmas. Joanie got kissed. Richie almost died. Marion went to jail. Fonzie lost his sight. We tackled every scenario we could think of in eleven seasons.

We constantly had to battle the network censors because they wanted a superclean show and took us to task if we tried anything they thought was too provocative. The coveted
Happy Days
time slot on Tuesdays at 8:00
P.M
. was considered family hour. In an early episode the censors told us that we could not use the word
virgin
to describe a girl. Instead Fonzie had to use the line “she was pure as the driven snow but she drifted.” There was no way for us to get around the censors, so we just had to please them as best we could. As a producer I had to make everyone happy, from the censors to the actors and the catering people. Some episodes were funnier than others, but I tried always to make sure they had heart. Families were inviting us into their living rooms every Tuesday, and I felt we had an obligation to be not only entertaining but also kind.

I was very clear, though, on what kind of help I could offer. I would stay up all night to fix a scene or a moment in a script. However, if someone wanted a better lamp in a dressing room or didn’t have a ride to the studio, I would point toward someone else to help. I would be fibbing if I didn’t say that some of the actors on
Happy Days
complained about things or made demands that were unreasonable. When that happened the person I pointed them toward was my levelheaded middle sister and associate producer, Ronny. In so
many ways
Happy Days
was an easier show to produce than
The Odd Couple
because I had more experience managing television actors.
Happy Days
allowed me to take what I had learned from Tony and Jack and practice my skills on a new group of younger actors. Every single actor on
Happy Days
was easier to deal with than Tony and Jack. If actors came to me and whined, “I haven’t been featured in an episode lately. I want a show all about my character,” I would say, “Wait your turn,” and they would. The supporting characters on
The Odd Couple
rarely asked for bigger parts because it was so clear Tony and Jack were the stars of the show. In fact, Tony and Jack were often the generous ones, saying, “Why don’t you give Al Molinaro or Elinor Donahue a bigger part this week?”

The cast and crew of
Happy Days
were content most of the time because they were so grateful to be working. I was so thrilled to have a show on the air that was a success, and they were so happy to have jobs and paychecks. The biggest star we had was Ron Howard, and he was the most amiable one of the entire group. Ron’s personality and upbeat nature set the example for the entire show. To have a temper tantrum when Ron was such an exemplary leader seemed crazy to the others, so they never acted up in front of Ron.

The first few seasons the cast was young and dating. The next few they were getting married and having babies. The last few they were having their second babies and settling into their lives as parents and grown-ups. These were not cocaine-snorting, Porsche-driving, wild nightclub-dancing people. Sure in the later years when Ted McGinley joined the cast and Scott Baio started dating Erin Moran and then Heather Locklear, we had our fair share of tabloid stories. But for the most part the press looked at our cast and said, “Those people are too happy.” We didn’t offer the dirt or the gossip they wanted to sell newspapers.

Part of the fun of
Happy Days
was that we were a hit show. We didn’t have to think of new ways to save the show but rather ways to keep it fresh by bringing in new characters. I once auditioned Nathan Lane for a part and he wasn’t quite right. Nathan went on to become a big star on Broadway. When I go to see him he will always
see me backstage and say with a smile, “There’s Garry Marshall, who turned me down for a part on
Happy Days
.”

While the
Happy Days
cast and crew became my family, I surrounded myself with my real family, too. My sister Ronny worked in the casting department as an associate producer, and my dad was on the producing staff. My mother and three kids acted in several episodes, my favorite being one in the second season called “Haunted,” in which my kids each played a trick or treater. While my wife didn’t appear on-screen until I directed movies a few years later, her job in the 1970s was to help me not forget I had a life off the lot. We continued to vacation in Carmel, California, every spring and go to Hawaii with the kids many Christmases. My wife remains one of the great road trip drivers of all time. On a dime she can be packed and ready to drive to San Francisco or Newport Beach for the weekend, even at midnight. So whenever there was a window, Barbara helped me make time for my kids and family. I was never a good driver, and in fact didn’t get my license until I was twenty-eight years old. It took me three tries to get my license, and I rarely make left turns, even today.

The ratings triumph of
Happy Days
was great, but something was nagging inside me. As much as I loved television, I still longed to be a part of live theater. It might sound crazy, but the success of
Happy Days
spurred me to keep dreaming of other kinds of creative outlets. So twice during
Happy Days
I took theater breaks. The first time was in the winter of 1974 to work as a script doctor on a big Broadway musical called
Good News
starring the great Alice Faye. It was exciting to be in New York City in the winter and see my credit in the program, which read “written by Abe Burrows with additional dialogue by Garry Marshall.” But the downside was that I had to be away from my family during Christmastime. For the first time in our marriage, my wife had to put up the Christmas tree and decorate it by herself.

The second time I left
Happy Days
was 1978, when I went to produce a play in Illinois called
Shelves
. It was the play I had written years earlier when my wife and Lori and I moved to Palm Springs
for several months. I took it out of my drawer and cast the most likable mother I knew—Marion Ross from
Happy Days
—as the lead. We opened at a dinner theater called the Pheasant Run Playhouse in St. Charles, Illinois. The play was a tribute to my mother, who could have been a star but was born at a time when women were not encouraged to work.

My family and Marion’s family had flown out for the opening, which would mark my debut as a playwright, something my mother had dreamed of since I was a boy. But this mood changed as my ten-year-old son, Scott, was rushed to the emergency room with pneumonia. They put him in an oxygen tent. On opening night I stood in the hospital room in my tuxedo with my two daughters wearing fancy new department store dresses. My wife said I had to attend opening night. I lifted up the plastic on the oxygen tent to kiss my son goodbye, but I was having trouble walking out the door. My wife encouraged me to go and take the girls to the theater. She would stay behind with Scott. So I went, weighed down by my own reluctance.

Over time my son got better, but I never forgot how conflicted I felt that night as a father and a playwright. When I should have been on top of the world about my play, I was worried sick about my son. I wanted to stay with him. I realized then how short and unpredictable life is. I had been a sick and fragile kid, and I had a sick and fragile kid that night. I realized you have to make the most of life while you can. So right after I returned home from Chicago, I went back to the safety of
Happy Days
. (Years later I did the play again at my Falcon Theatre and retitled it
Everybody Say “Cheese!”
)

When my writing partner Jerry Belson’s dad died, Jerry wrote a beautiful letter saying how much his father had meant to him. But his father never had the chance to hear Jerry’s thoughts because he was already gone. Around this time I decided to write letters to my parents while they were still alive. I wanted them to know how much I appreciated and loved them. I thanked my mother for always giving me aspirin, soaking my stitches, cooking for me, and bringing me sports magazines when I was sick. I thanked my father for taking me to professional football games. My dad also taught me how
to be a boss, and took me to see live radio shows. In my neighborhood no other dads were taking their kids to radio shows, and that made me feel extraspecial. And finally, I thanked him for helping me get into Northwestern and carve out a new life for myself. Many years later I saw my dad still carried my letter in his wallet, and he would show it to bartenders whether he was drinking at a local bar or at his favorite golf club, Lakeside.

Back to the topic of
Happy Days
. People come up and ask me all the time about the phrase
jumping the shark
and if I find it offensive. The expression comes from a late episode of
Happy Days
in which Fonzie uses water skis to literally jump over a shark in the ocean. It was certainly not one of the shows I am most proud of. But I love the phrase
jumping the shark
and the way people use it today to signify a TV series nearing the end of its run. In 2009 I did a full stage tour of the
Happy Days
musical, which I wrote with Paul Williams and produced with
Happy Days
executive producers Bob Boyett and Tom Miller. One of the big jokes in the musical is when someone notices Fonzie is in a bad mood and says, “He hasn’t been the same since he jumped the shark.”