She bonded with other "misfits" trying to break into Hollywood, including Reiner, whom she wed in 1971. By then he was starring in TV's All in the Family. And by the way he adopted her daughter Tracy.
Marshall got her own break when her brother cast her in his show The Odd Couple. A few years later he hired her and Cindy Williams to guest-star as "fast girls" on Happy Days.
"Penny brought pathos, truth, vulnerability, humor and a brilliant performance out of Tom Hanks," says costar Elizabeth Perkins. "He trusted her. And I trusted her."
Although her health declined, and her last movie was 2001's Riding in Cars with Boys, Marshall never truly retired, taking TV directing gigs and even guesting on the new version of The Odd Couple in 2016.
盡管馬歇爾的健康狀況每況愈下,上一部電影是2001年的《與男孩同車(chē)》(Riding in Cars with Boys),但她從未真正退休,參加過(guò)電視導(dǎo)演工作,甚至在2016年客串了新版《怪夫妻》(the Odd Couple)。
"She was shocked at her surprising success—it never went to her head," says Cindi Miller, Marshall's friend and seatmate at L.A. Clippers games for the past 16 years.
"She was so sweet but rough around the edges—like a barbecued marshmallow, crispy on the outside and the most mushy marshmallow on the inside. She was always the girl from back in the Bronx."