14:38Classic TV · 1977Laverne & Shirley Cast Then and Now
Episode: Laverne & Shirley (1976): Cast Then & Now 2026 — Who's Still Alive After 50 Years?
From Hollywood Legends Era · 16 min ·
About the Laverne & Shirley Cast Then and Now
The Laverne & Shirley cast then and now is the story of two working women from Milwaukee who became, for a while, the most-watched friends on American television. The ABC sitcom premiered on January 27, 1976, and ran for eight seasons and 178 episodes, ending on May 10, 1983.
Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney capped bottles at the fictional Shotz Brewery, and by season three the show was the highest-rated program in the country. This episode remembers twelve people connected to it. Fifty years later, six of them have passed away.
How Laverne and Shirley Got Their Own Show
The girls first appeared on Happy Days. In the episode "A Date with Fonzie," which aired on November 11, 1975, the Fonz set up Richie Cunningham on a double date with two friends of his, Laverne and Shirley.
Lowell Ganz and Mark Rothman co-wrote that episode, and the spinoff they created with Garry Marshall reached the air about eleven weeks later.
Where Is the Laverne & Shirley Cast Now?
Henry Winkler as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli
Henry Winkler brought the girls to television as the Fonz. He was born on October 30, 1945.
Starting in 2003, he co-wrote the Hank Zipzer children's books with Lin Oliver. The hero is a boy with dyslexia, like Winkler himself. Henry Winkler is 80 today.
Penny Marshall as Laverne DeFazio
Penny Marshall was born in New York City on October 15, 1943, and grew up in the Bronx. Her brother Garry Marshall co-created the show. She moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to join him, and one of her first jobs on camera was a shampoo commercial with a young Farrah Fawcett.
Before Laverne, she spent four years as Myrna, the secretary on The Odd Couple. She began directing with four episodes of Laverne & Shirley. Her 1988 hit Big, starring Tom Hanks, made her the first woman director whose film earned more than $100 million at the box office.
Penny Marshall died at her home in Los Angeles on December 17, 2018, at age 75, from complications of diabetes.
Phil Foster as Frank DeFazio
Phil Foster was born Fivel Feldman in Brooklyn on March 29, 1913. He took his stage name from Foster Avenue in Brooklyn.
After Army service in World War II, he became a nightclub comic. He had once helped Garry Marshall get started as a comedy writer, and Marshall returned the favor, bringing him to The Odd Couple and then casting him as Laverne's father, owner of the Pizza Bowl.
Phil Foster died of a heart attack in Rancho Mirage, California, on July 8, 1985. He was 72.
Betty Garrett as Edna Babish
Betty Garrett was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, on May 23, 1919. She came up on Broadway in the early 1940s, then starred opposite Frank Sinatra in two 1949 films, Take Me Out to the Ball Game and On the Town.
Then her husband, actor Larry Parks, testified to Congress about his past Communist Party membership and was blacklisted, and her own work dried up too.
Television brought her back, first as neighbor Irene Lorenzo on All in the Family, a role that won her a Golden Globe. From 1976 she played landlady Edna Babish, who married Laverne's father. She left in 1981 for the Broadway show The Supporting Cast. She died in Los Angeles on February 12, 2011, at age 91.
Carole Ita White as Rosie Greenbaum
Carole Ita White first appeared in season one in a small, different role. In season two she returned as Big Rosie Greenbaum, Laverne and Shirley's childhood rival, and she played Rosie in 12 episodes in all.
Acting ran in her family. Her father was Jesse White, the lonely Maytag repairman of TV commercials.
Vicki Lawrence as Sgt. Alvinia T. Plout
Vicki Lawrence was born Vicki Ann Axelrad in Inglewood, California, on March 26, 1949. As a high school senior, she entered a local contest, and a reporter noted how much she looked like a young Carol Burnett. Burnett came to the contest, and soon Lawrence joined her show.
She stayed all 11 seasons, and her character Mama grew into Mama's Family. When the girls joined the Army Reserve in season five, she played their drill sergeant in five episodes. She is 77.
Ed Marinaro as Sonny St. Jacques
Ed Marinaro was born in New York City on March 31, 1950. He was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in 1971, then played six NFL seasons, including Super Bowls VIII and IX with the Minnesota Vikings.
In 1980 and 1981 he played Sonny St. Jacques, a Hollywood stuntman, in 11 episodes. He then left to play Officer Joe Coffey on Hill Street Blues.
In April 2022 he announced a Vikings pick at the NFL Draft in Las Vegas. He joked that they did not have this many people when he played in the Super Bowl, and spoke for two minutes and 34 seconds until a producer came out to hurry him along. He is 76.
Leslie Easterbrook as Rhonda Lee
Leslie Easterbrook was adopted at nine months old and raised in Arcadia, Nebraska. She joined the show in season six as Rhonda Lee, the girls' glamorous Burbank neighbor and an aspiring actress, and stayed through the final season in 51 episodes.
Singing the national anthem at Super Bowl XVII in January 1983 led to starring roles in stage musicals. Her best-known part came next: Debbie Callahan in six Police Academy films, the last being Mission to Moscow in 1994.
Eddie Mekka as Carmine Ragusa
Eddie Mekka was born Edward Mekjian in Worcester, Massachusetts, on June 14, 1952. He earned a Tony nomination for the Broadway rock musical The Lieutenant.
As Carmine "The Big Ragu" Ragusa, Shirley's on-and-off boyfriend, he stayed from 1976 until the end. Carmine liked to burst into the Tony Bennett ballad "Rags to Riches," and the series finale sent him to New York to try out for Hair on Broadway.
He later toured in Grease with Cindy Williams. He died in Newhall, California, on November 27, 2021, at age 69.
Michael McKean as Lenny Kosnowski
Michael McKean was born in New York City on October 17, 1947. At Carnegie Mellon University, he and classmate David Lander created Lenny and Squiggy years before the show existed.
He played Lenny in 149 episodes. In 1984 he played singer David St. Hubbins in This Is Spinal Tap, which he co-wrote, and he returned for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues in 2025. He also played Chuck McGill on Better Call Saul. He is 78.
David L. Lander as Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman
David Lander was born in Brooklyn on June 22, 1947. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1984, the year after the show ended, and kept it private for about fifteen years before going public in 1999.
He told his story in a memoir with a title only Squiggy could have chosen: Fall Down Laughing: How Squiggy Caught Multiple Sclerosis and Didn't Tell Nobody. David Lander died in Los Angeles on December 4, 2020, at age 73, from complications of multiple sclerosis.
Cindy Williams as Shirley Feeney
Cindy Williams was born in Van Nuys, California, on August 22, 1947. In George Lucas's American Graffiti (1973), she played Laurie, Ron Howard's high school sweetheart. She was among the many actresses who auditioned for Star Wars, but the part of Princess Leia went to Carrie Fisher.
She left the show early in its final season. In 2022 she began touring a one-woman show, Me, Myself and Shirley, opening in Palm Springs.
Cindy Williams died in Los Angeles on January 25, 2023, after a brief illness. She was 75.
Why Laverne & Shirley Still Feels Like Home
Most television of the 1970s showed comfortable families. This show was about two young women who worked on a factory line, shared a basement apartment and watched every dollar. Many viewers recognized their own lives in it.
The people behind it shared real bonds, too. Old friends hired old friends, and two college classmates got to play the oddballs they had invented on a number-one show.
Did you ever meet anyone from this cast, or do you remember where you watched the show each week?
Sources and Further Reading
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