Garry Marshall

The guiding force behind some of the most popular films and television shows of the late 20th and early 21st century, Emmy-nominated writer, director and producer Garry Marshall rose from the writers' room on series like "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (CBS, 1961-66) to producer and creator of such enduring hits as "The Odd Couple" (ABC, 1970-75), "Happy Days" (ABC, 1974-1984), "Laverne and Shirley" (ABC, 1976-1983) and "Mork and Mindy" (ABC, 1978-1982). Marshall's segue into film direction during the early 1980s was equally successful and would go on to include such box office juggernauts as "Pretty Woman" (1990), the "The Princess Diaries" (2001) franchise and a commercially successful series of romantic comedies based around holidays, "Valentine's Day" (2010), "New Year's Eve" (2011) and "Mother's Day" (2016). As a frequent bit player in films and television, he could be counted on to provide streetwise humor and curmudgeonly charm, most notably as a recurring character on "Murphy Brown" (CBS, 1988-1998), in the feature comedy "Keeping Up with the Steins" (2006), which was directed by his son, Scott, and on a reboot of "The Odd Couple" (CBS 2015- ), in which he played the father of Matthew Perry's Oscar Madison. Garry Marshall died of complications from pneumonia on July 19, 2016 at the age of 81.