Remembering Cindy Williams: A Classic Interview With the Comedy Icon

LAVERNE & SHIRLEY (aka LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY), Cindy Williams, 1976-83 — Everett Collection

In 2015, ReMind caught up with Cindy Williams, who, with Penny Marshall, formed one of the most famous duos of the ’70s: Laverne & Shirley. Though the Happy Days spin-off had punchy jokes and fun plotlines, the true appeal was in the chemistry between its two stars, who bounced off each other with an energy not seen since Lucy and Ethel.

Though Williams, who would have turned 78 on August 22, 2025, passed in 2023, her legacy lives on — not just in her TV work, but in her memoir, Shirley, I Jest! A Storied Life, which recounted her time on that iconic program, along with stories from her entire life and career.

In honor of Williams and her career, flashback with our interview from a decade ago, where we spoke with Williams about her book, her famous comedy partnership, and why “we always made sure that the joke was always on ourselves.”

Looking back at Laverne & Shirley, do you think the show broke ground by featuring a female comedic duo?

Cindy Williams: I guess it was unique in that way, in the respect that you hadn’t seen that before, except with Lucy and Ethel. They didn’t do too much physical comedy together. Lucile Ball did most of the physical comedy. It’s not like there’ve been a lot of shows that have followed where they’ve had two women as the leads. I guess 2 Broke Girls is one. There’s two women in it, there’s two actresses as the leads and they get into trouble together, but it’s not like Laverne & Shirley in the physical respect. We always sought to do big physical scenes in the show.

LAVERNE & SHIRLEY, Penny Marshall, Cindy Williams, 1976-1983.

ABC /Courtesy Everett Collection

Did you and Penny Marshall bring unique strengths to your partnership?

We were very much alike, yet very different. She’s athletic, I’m agile. She can dance, I can sing. I could fake-dance, she could fake-sing. The differences in us were great for the physical comedy and for the attitudes of the characters because it lent itself to covering all bases. We could mirror each other in the physicality of the show when we got to something that we wanted to be physically funny.

We were very different and, to this day, still are very different. She would get onstage and she’d have her lines memorized by the second day or some of them memorized in scenes that first day. Having dyslexia, it would take me forever to learn the show, and we’d be changing it along the way.

Penny and I always, however we approached something — because we’d approach things sometimes differently — we would always land on the same mark at the same time. We always knew the other one was coming there. We knew the other one’s rhythms. They were different but they were alike. We were different, but that’s what made it fun. The two characters were different and Penny and I are different. In many respects in our personalities and in many respects we’re exactly the same. Penny and I can walk into a room, see the same thing at the same time and make the same comment on it.

Viewers certainly grew to love the dynamic between the both of you as performers, but why do you think that your characters were such favorites?

If you look at the two characters, Laverne and Shirley, they would approach things differently, like paying the electric bill or giving back the overpayment of the electric bill. Shirley would question it and say, “No, we have to give it back.” Laverne would say, “Why?”

LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY, Cindy Williams, Penny Marshall, 1976-83

Everett Collection

My character represented the morality of it and her character represented the human element of it … take the money and run. I think in that respect we represented everybody’s way of thinking. I think both those ways. Penny thinks both those ways and most people think both those ways. They’ll struggle with it but what Laverne and Shirley represented was the two characters doing it out loud and going back and forth. That’s why it was fun.

We always made sure that the joke was always on ourselves and never on an element of society. Let’s say if we were going to do something about people being overweight, it’d be about us being overweight. We’d laugh about ourselves, and the audience would identify with us.

You’ve had such a diverse and extensive career with everything from stage shows to single-camera comedies and some dramas on your resumé. Do you prefer performing in front of a live audience?

Yes. I much prefer theater. It’s what I was trained to do. It’s my first love. I have utter respect and I’m still in awe of it and it always excites me to do theater on a stage with an audience. However, Laverne & Shirley had an audience when we shot it. There was always an audience, a big audience. It was the best of all possible worlds.

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 14: Actress Cindy Williams attends the 10th Annual TV Land Awards at the Lexington Avenue Armory on April 14, 2012 in New York City.

Gary Gershoff/Getty Images

Your memoir, Shirley, I Jest! has gotten rave reviews since its release. For those who haven’t read it yet, what can they expect?

Just a fun read. A fun, fast read. I wrote it so that the reader would go along with me in all my little stories and adventures and be right there and that when they put it down they had a smile on their face. Maybe laugh out loud a couple of times, maybe, while reading it. That was my pure pleasure of writing it.