And we see Penny at work with Tom Hanks, Mark Wahlberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Robert De Niro, and Whitney Houston. We meet a young Carrie Fisher, whose close friendship with Penny spanned decades. And married again (the second time to Rob Reiner). My Mother Was Nuts is an intimate backstage pass to Penny's personal life, her breakout role on The Odd Couple, her exploits with Cindy Williams and John Belushi, and her travels across Europe with Art Garfunkel on the back of a motorcycle. In this funny and intimate memoir, Penny takes us from the stage of The Jackie Gleason Show in 1955 to Hollywood's star-studded sets, offering up some hilarious detours along the way.

What they don't know is her trailblazing career was a happy accident. In between, in 1990, Marshall became the second woman director to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture for her movie Awakenings, starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams.Most people know Penny Marshall as the director of Big and A League of Their Own.

Four years later, she did it again with A League of Their Own. In 1988, she became the first female director to earn $100 million at the box office for her movie Big, which starred a very young and very silly Tom Hanks. But she decided she wanted to take her talented behind the camera, and there, Marshall broke new ground for female directors in an industry that rarely saw women succeed. Marshall launched her Hollywood career as an actress with roles on The Odd Couple and as one of the titular characters in the wildly popular television show Laverne & Shirley.

'We hope her life continues to inspire others to spend time with family, work hard and make all of their dreams come true.' “Penny was a girl from the Bronx, who came out West, put a cursive ‘L’ on her sweater and transformed herself into a Hollywood success story,” her family told ABC News on Tuesday in a statement about Marshall's death. Over the course of her incredible career, the A League of Their Own director broke down barriers in what was, and still is, a male-dominated industry. The pioneering director and actor best known for her role on Laverne & Shirley, Penny Marshall, died on Monday night, leaving behind an incredible legacy, both in front and behind the camera.

My mother was nuts by penny marshall