Aug 27, 2026 · 58 min · 18 segments
Penny Marshall and her brother Garry were mainstays of 1970s and 80s sitcoms. Garry's little sister became a big star when she starred in the *Happy Days* spinoff, *Laverne and Shirley.* However…
Stephanie WeberHost
Her mother was a dance teacher, and her Italian-American father was a filmmaker who specifically worked on making industrial films.
Those are basically a company's company-only movie that either give you instructions on how something works or safety training, things like that.
Her dad changed the family name from Mascarelli to Marshall before Penny was born.
Penny said this was because her mom would send them to any place that had a hall she could use for dance recitals.
She got her first taste of the spotlight when she performed as a dancer in her mom's tap dance group, the Marshallettes.
Her mother was always pushing her to be a dancer, but Penny didn't take to it quite the way her mom expected.
At one point in her childhood, her mom told her that Penny had to choose who to live with because her parents were getting a divorce.
She went through the agonizing decision-making process all on her own and finally decided she'd live with her mom because her mom was more available.
She went up to her dad to tearfully tell him the decision, and he had no idea what she was talking about.
Because of this instability, her older brother Gary made a pact with his sisters.
Her mother was a dance teacher, and her Italian-American father was a filmmaker who specifically worked on making industrial films.
Those are basically a company's company-only movie that either give you instructions on how something works or safety training, things like that.
Her dad changed the family name from Mascarelli to Marshall before Penny was born.
Penny said this was because her mom would send them to any place that had a hall she could use for dance recitals.
She got her first taste of the spotlight when she performed as a dancer in her mom's tap dance group, the Marshallettes.
Her mother was always pushing her to be a dancer, but Penny didn't take to it quite the way her mom expected.
At one point in her childhood, her mom told her that Penny had to choose who to live with because her parents were getting a divorce.
She went through the agonizing decision-making process all on her own and finally decided she'd live with her mom because her mom was more available.
She went up to her dad to tearfully tell him the decision, and he had no idea what she was talking about.
Because of this instability, her older brother Gary made a pact with his sisters.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.