My Mother Was Nuts: Penny Marshall's Hollywood Travels

Penny Marshall was the first female director to make a movie that passed the $100 million mark at the box office (she did it twice). Her memoir, My Mother Was Nuts, offers an insight into her journey to and through Hollywood, and also reveals her gift for telling incredibly funny stories.

Penny grew up in the Bronx with her older sister Ronny and older brother Garry (i.e. Garry Marshall, the hugely successful comedy writer and director of films like Pretty Woman, Valentine's Day, and The Princess Diaries). As evinced by the book's title, her mother was an odd woman, who hadn't planned on having a third child, didn't much like her husband, and had a rather laissez-faire attitude to parenting. She ran a dance school in the cellar of their apartment building and Penny was forced to attend dance classes through much of her childhood. The book opens with hilarious tales of Penny's formative experiences at school, in the Bronx, and at Jewish summer camp, where she and her siblings faithfully recited prayers despite the fact that they weren't Jewish and had all been confirmed in different religious denominations based on which church needed their mother to put on a dance recital that week.

In college, Penny got pregnant, married her first husband, quickly realized she had made a mistake, and set off for Hollywood. What follows is a dizzying series of stories populated by the creme de la creme of Hollywood society and comedy royalty. Penny fully traded on the fact that her brother was an established writer for The Dick Van Dyke Show and he furnished her with all of the contacts and information that would help her make her way. He also wrote Laverne and Shirley, her breakout TV hit that also gave her her first chance to direct. Penny isn't coy about the fact that she broke into Hollywood through nepotism, but it is equally clear that the sheer force of her personality and ability to strike up a friendship with anybody paved the way for her huge success.

Of course, not everything came up roses, and there are plenty of stories about sex, drugs, and rock n' roll that could have been her undoing. Fortunately, she made it through relatively unscathed, and the tone of her memoir is always humorous and self-deprecating. The stories about her two most successful movies, Big and A League of Their Own are particularly endearing for anyone who is a fan of those films. Given the breadth of Penny's work and friendships in Hollywood, her stories feature a who's-who of anyone and everyone worth knowing in the business of making movies.

My Mother Was Nuts offers an in-depth look at one of Hollywood's most successful and influential women, who managed to make it in the heavily male-dominated sphere of directing movies. Penny Marshall is clear that she took all the help that she could get and made sure she only worked with people who would respect her. Ultimately, that's valuable advice to any woman trying to make it in any field.