Cynthia Jane Williams was an American actress and producer, known for her role as Shirley

Cynthia Jane Williams was an American actress and producer, known for her role as Shirley Feeney on the television sitcom Happy Days (1975 to 1979), and Laverne and Shirley (1976 to 1982). She also appeared in American Graffiti (1973) and The Conversation (1974).

EARLY LIFE
Williams was born in the Van Nuys district of Los Angeles, California, on August 22, 1947. The family moved to Dallas, Texas when she was a year old and returned to Los Angeles when she was ten years old. She had one sibling, a sister named Carol Ann.

Williams wrote and acted during childhood at a church and later acted at Birmingham High School, graduating in 1965. She attended Los Angeles City College where she majored in theater .

CAREER
After college, Williams began her professional career by landing national commercials, which included Foster Grant sunglasses and TWA. Her first roles in television, among others, were on Room 222, Nanny and the Professor, and Love, American Style.

Williams accompanied an actor-friend from Los Angeles City College who needed a scene partner for the audition and was also accepted at The Actors Studio West, but rarely attended due to acting commitments. Williams picked up important film roles early in her career: George Cukor's Travels with My Aunt (1972); as Laurie Henderson, Ron Howard's character's high school sweetheart in George Lucas's American Graffiti (1973) for which she earned a BAFTA nomination as Best Supporting Actress; and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974). She auditioned, along with thousands of others, for Lucas's Star Wars for the role of Princess Leia, but Leia was ultimately played by Carrie Fisher because Lucas wished to cast unknowns, as in American Graffiti.

Williams met Penny Marshall, first on a double date, and later at Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope company, both hired as comedy writers, because "they wanted two women", on a prospective TV spoof for the Bicentennial. While the two were writing at Zoetrope, Penny Marshall's brother, Garry Marshall, called to ask if they would like to make an appearance on one episode of Happy Days, the television series he produced.

In 1975, Williams was cast as a fun-loving brewery bottle capper, Shirley Feeney, in an episode of Happy Days with Penny, who played her best friend and roommate Laverne De Fazio. The girls were cast as "sure-thing" dates of Richie and Fonzie (Henry Winkler). Their appearance proved so popular that Garry Marshall, commissioned a spin-off series for the characters of Shirley and Laverne. Williams continued her role on the very successful Laverne and Shirley series from 1976 until 1982. At one point during its run, the series was the number one rated show on television. Williams was praised for her portrayal of Shirley Feeney. She left the show after the second episode of the show's eighth and what would become its final season, after she became pregnant with her first child. The show's various producers were not enthusiastic that Williams was pregnant, as her character Shirley was not pregnant. Williams and co-star Penny Marshall had also been feuding for quite some time on the set long before Williams became pregnant. They would reconcile many years later. The success of the TV series led to a short-lived Saturday morning animated series Laverne and Shirley in the Army (1981 to 82), created by Hanna-Barbera.

In 1979 she reprised the role of Laurie from American Graffiti in its sequel, More American Graffiti.

In 1985 she starred in the sci-fi comedy UFOria alongside Fred Ward and Harry Dean Stanton, a movie that was already completed in 1981 but not released until 1985.

In 1990, Williams returned to series TV in the short-lived sitcom Normal Life and, a couple years later, reunited with former Laverne and Shirley...

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Williams

TAGS: Cindy Williams, Los Angeles City College alumni, Living people, Hudson family (show business), Birmingham High School alumni, American voice actresses, American people of English descent, American people of Italian descent, American television actresses, American Roman Catholics, American film actresses, Actresses from Los Angeles, 21st-century American actresses, 20th-century American actresses

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