One Half Of Milwaukee’s Brewery Broads
By Taylor Neumann
Cindy Williams was born Cynthia Williams in Van Nuys, California, on Aug. 22, 1947. She acted throughout her childhood and began her professional career after college by acting in commercials and landing some small television parts on shows such as Room 222, Nanny and the Professor and Love, American Style.
Next, Williams landed roles in movies, including as Ron Howard’s high school sweetheart in American Graffiti (1973) — which earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Williams first met Penny Marshall on a double date with another couple, and they later reconnected when both were hired as comedy writers for Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope company. It was while writing for this company that the women were approached by Marshall’s brother, Garry, to see if they would make a one-episode guest appearance on the television series he produced, Happy Days. They agreed.
The episode aired in 1975 and cast Williams as a happy-go-lucky worker at a brewery named Shirley Feeney. Marshall played her best friend and roommate, Laverne DeFazio. Both girls were cast as dates for Richie Cunningham (Howard) and Fonzie (Henry Winkler). But their appearance on the series proved so popular that Garry Marshall proposed a spinoff series following the ladies in their day-to-day life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Thus was born Laverne & Shirley, which ran for eight seasons from 1976 to 1983. Twice during its run, the series became the No. 1 rated show on television.
Williams stayed on the show until its eighth and final season, when she left because of her real-life pregnancy. She had also developed an antagonistic relationship with Marshall. Though the two did go through a 30-year estrangement, they eventually reconciled in 2013.
In 1990, Williams returned to a regular television series with the show Normal Life, which ran for 13 episodes, and later, Getting By (1993-94). She made appearances in multiple made-for-television films and guest-starred on shows such as Touched by an Angel, 7th Heaven, 8 Simple Rules and Law & Order: SVU, and even reunited with Marshall in an episode of Sam & Cat in 2013.
Williams married Bill Hudson in 1982; the couple had two children together before their divorce in 2000. She can currently be found on social media and promoting her memoir, Shirley, I Jest!, which was released in 2015.
