To Absent Friends - Bill Fralic and Penny Marshall

As often happens, real life has interceded with the writing schedule of The Grandstander in recent weeks and has prevented me from writing about the loss of two persons of consequence in recent weeks.  So let us now note the departures of two Absent Friends.

Bill Fralic

1962-2018

Bill Fralic succumbed to cancer last week at the age of 56.  He is probably the greatest offensive lineman to ever come out of the WPIAL (Penn Hills High School) and the University of Pittsburgh, and in a nine year NFL career (1985-93), eight of those seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, he was a four time All Pro and a member of the NFL's All Decade Team for the 1980's.  Being around Pitt people, it was known that Fralic was in failing health, so his death didn't come as a total surprise, but it still comes as a shock when the news arrives.

Fralic had established a successful insurance business in Atlanta, but he always remained true to his Penn Hills and Pitt roots.  He was a long time benefactor of his high school athletic programs, and it recently became known that when Penn Hills travelled to Hershey, PA to play in the state football championship game, which they won, the travel and hotel expenses for the entire team was picked up by Bill Fralic.

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Penny Marshall

1943 - 2018

Actress and director Penny Marshall died earlier this week at the age of 75 due to complications from diabetes.  

The first time I remember seeing Marshall was when she played Myrna, Oscar Madison's secretary on the television version of "The Odd Couple" back in the early 1970's.  There soon followed a guest spot on "Happy Days" when she played tough talking chick Laverne Defazio who had somehow fallen into a date with square Richie Cunningham.  That appearance soon begot the spin-off series "Laverne and Shirley", in which Marshall co-starred with Cindy Williams.  That series soon became TV's #1 rated show and ran for 178 episodes from 1976 to 1983.  On that show, Penny Marshall showed a gift for physical comedy that had some people comparing her to Lucille Ball.

Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams

"Laverne and Shirley"

Marshall continued to act in films and television into the 2010's, but her work as a feature film director is perhaps where she will be most remembered.  There were many of them, but perhaps her best known and most remembered efforts as a director were 1988's "Big" starring Tom Hanks and 1992's "A League of Their Own", the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that came into being during World War II.  There really was such a league, and the movie gave a fictionalized treatment of it.  It starred Hanks, again, and Geena Davis, Madonna, and Rosie O'Donnell and many consider it one of the best baseball movies ever made.

Actress, director, writer, and producer.  She was a giant of a talent.

RIP Bill Fralic and Penny Marshall