By Georgia Kerrigan ’27
Step into University Libraries between now the end of the quarter and you’ll find yourself immersed in decades of entertainment history: scripts, scrapbooks, photographs, storyboards, and even a Happy Days lunchbox, all belonging to famous director, writer, and actor Garry Marshall.
Garry Marshall (front) with the casts of Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy
Marshall, ’56, created some of the most memorable media for generations of TV viewers and moviegoers, from Happy Days to Princess Diaries. He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism and participated in various social and academic opportunities on campus. Seemingly, Marshall did it all: sports writing for The Daily, performing in the Waa-Mu show, drumming in several pickup bands, table-waiting for a sorority to earn money – any opportunity to perform and write. His extensive career is evident in his collection, which spans almost 100 linear feet of shelf space, and makes up the fall exhibit Garry Marshall: The Happy Days of Northwestern’s Favorite Director.
His broad involvement at Northwestern is only a sliver, however, of what would evolve into a decades-long creative career as a comedy writer, actor, screenwriter, producer, director, and beloved Hollywood icon.
University Historian Kevin Leonard, who led the years-long process of acquiring Marshall’s personal archive, stressed the privilege and significance of obtaining Marshall’s physical record.
“It is a wonderful collection, not only in that it documents [Marshall] as an individual in a specific time and place, but it also is reflective of products and projects with which he was associated that have had an outsized impact on American culture,” he said.
The collection contains boxes and boxes of documents — drafts of jokes, scripts, and plays — but several bigger artifacts also tell his story as well, including his baseball glove, a Princess Diaries film slate, his director’s chair, and a striking set of penciled storyboards for the 1990 rom-com Pretty Woman.
“Those are really cool, because you’re getting into the raw details of storytelling,” Leonard said of the pencil sketches. “We have the final shooting script for that movie, but when you add the other archival records, you get a very clear picture of how he approached his craft.”
Pencil sketch storyboard for Pretty Woman (1990)
Beyond providing a glimpse into the technical process of creating what is arguably Marshall’s most famous film, Leonard explained that the movie records serve a practical purpose for Northwestern students.
“These are career blueprints of an extraordinarily accomplished person in Hollywood. School of Communication students — anyone who wants to know tricks of the trade — can learn from these pieces.”
More than both his career feats and his personal interests though, the exhibit reveals a major character trait of Marshall: his humor.
Plastered on the wall behind the exhibit cases are just some of the hundreds of joke drafts Marshall wrote in his career for comedians such as Joey Bishop and Arthur Godfrey, gems like “Do you serve crabs here?” (“We serve anybody, sit down.”) and “Whenever I’m in the dumps, I get a new dress.” (“I was wondering where you got them.”)
On the four occasions that Kevin Leonard met Marshall, he described the director as dismissive about the importance of saving his collection. “His response was, ‘You want what? Who wants that? Why?’” Leonard said. “Before he was convinced that this material held interest for the University, a lot of it was probably thrown out.”
The Mork & Mindy Card Game prompts players to make alien sounds as they play cards; when someone plays Mork (Robin Williams), all players must reach for a styrofoam egg, “musical chairs” style.
Still, Leonard expressed gratitude for the significant amount of material that was retained and for the Marshall family, who he described as “spectacularly careful and remarkably giving for allowing us to preserve this material.”
Barbara Marshall, Garry’s wife, greatly contributed to the curation of her husband’s collection after his 2016 passing, not only by sharing his physical materials, but also by sharing stories about his life and personality.
The Marshall family will be visiting Northwestern on Nov. 15, homecoming weekend, in Norris University Center’s McCormick Auditorium to discuss and celebrate Marshall’s life and career.
Georgia Kerrigan is a Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications sophomore