Pour out a Shotz tonight in honor of Shirley Feeney (and the late Penny Marshall’s Laverne DeFazio, while you’re at it).
Cindy Williams, the actress who rose to fame in the 1970s as one of two stars of the blockbuster sitcom Laverne & Shirley, died today at the age of 75.
TMZ obtained the following statement from the family of Cindy Williams, announcing her death: “The passing of our kind, hilarious mother, Cindy Williams, has brought us insurmountable sadness that could never truly be expressed. Knowing and loving her has been our joy and privilege. She was one of a kind, beautiful, generous and possessed a brilliant sense of humor and a glittering spirit that everyone loved.”
The California-born actress got her start in the business back in the late 1960s as a commercial actress, but caught a huge break when she was cast alongside Ron Howard in George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973), a role which earned her a BAFTA nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She followed up that with an appearance in another film from a titan of New Hollywood, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), but narrowly missed out on worldwide fame when she lost the role of Princess Leia to Carrie Fisher in Lucas’ Graffiti follow-up, the seminal 1977 movie Star Wars.
