Cindy Williams’ run on Laverne & Shirley got here to a seemingly abrupt finish within the fall of 1982, when she left the present two episodes into its eighth season.
While viewers at house had seen Williams’ Shirley Feeney marry Walter Meeney within the eighth-season premiere (making her Shirley Feeney Meeney), it was a startling improvement for one-half of the present’s titular duo to depart so instantly.
The change was simply as surprising behind the scenes, and for good purpose: In March 1982, Williams obtained pregnant along with her daughter, Emily. She coordinated with the present to proceed working by means of her being pregnant, recalling on Today in 2015, “I thought I was going to come back and they’d hide me behind benches, couches, pillows, and that wasn’t it.”
Instead, Williams stated, the present had her scheduled to work by means of her due date that fall, all of which was stipulated in her contract. “When it came time for me to sign my contract for that season … I said, ‘I can’t sign this,'” Williams told Today. “And it went back and forth and back and forth, and it just never got worked out.”
Watch the Opening Credits to ‘Laverne & Shirley’
The actress selected to stroll away from the sitcom as a substitute of signing what at the moment could be thought-about a discriminatory and unrealistic contract. With then-husband Bill Hudson, she’d later sue the present for $20 million (the case was settled out of courtroom for an undisclosed quantity). Williams instructed Today that quickly after she left Laverne & Shirley she observed that extra and extra reveals had been constructing nurseries on units and offering nannies for his or her stars.
At the time, superstar media wasn’t what it’s at the moment, and Williams’ determination to depart the sequence was left pretty opaque to each viewers and individuals watchers. Some stories stated {that a} longstanding feud with costar Penny Marshall led to her determination to depart, whereas others claimed that Williams had made outrageous calls for throughout contract negotiations, resulting in her being fired from the function.
Watch a 2016 Interview With Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall
In actuality, whereas Marshall and Williams’ relationship had change into a bit strained as a result of Marshall thought Williams’ husband was “a pain in the ass,” Marshall did attempt to get her costar to remain on the present, providing to do no matter it took to maintain the duo collectively. “I don’t care, Cin. Lay in bed the whole time and be the biggest pain-in-the-ass pregnant person you’ve ever seen,” Marshall recalled saying. “I’ll run around! Just take care of the dialogue.”
When Williams selected to depart the present as a substitute, Marshall tried to name her, however forces saved the 2 from talking. “They wouldn’t put me through to her,” Marshall stated. “I missed her not being there.”
Fans additionally missed Williams, and the actress’ abrupt departure left Marshall in an uncomfortable state of affairs. “I was going out in front of the [studio] audience and they said, ‘What happened with Cindy?’ It was a drag.” Eventually, Williams and Marshall reconciled and frolicked steadily till Marshall died in 2018.
The means Laverne & Shirley handled Williams’ departure on-air was jarring. In the second episode of Season 8 – which aired on Oct. 12, 1982 – issues had been seemingly regular with the wacky duo, because the pair spent every week in a retailer show earlier than one way or the other being hypnotized to assume they had been chickens each time they heard a bell.
Watch Cindy Williams’ Final Episode of ‘Laverne & Shirley’
In the present’s subsequent episode, nevertheless, Shirley was gone, having disappeared whereas Laverne and Carmine had been out at a dance contest. The plot famous that Shirley had packed up all her issues and left within the area of a few hours underneath the guise of her new husband being transferred abroad, leaving solely a notice to say goodbye. It was an ignominious ending to Williams’ future on the present, however one which mirrored the local weather for working moms on the time.
Laverne & Shirley wasn’t renewed on the finish of its eighth season, and the present quietly light from ABC’s schedule after its season finale in May 1983. Meanwhile, Williams continued to have a protracted and profitable performing profession, showing in a wide range of different TV reveals and movies. In 2017, she launched the memoir Shirley: I Jest!: A Storied Life, which chronicled her life on the traditional sitcom and elsewhere in Hollywood.
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