Actress and director Penny Marshall died on Monday, December 17, 2018, at her home in the Hollywood Hills. Her publicist confirmed that she passed away due to diabetes complications. She was 75 years old.

Marshall is known for both her comedic acting and directing talents. On the acting side, she is best known for playing Laverne DeFazio, one of the two leads in the late ’70s sitcom Laverne & Shirley. Created by her brother Garry Marshall, the show featured the antics of two blue collar women who worked as bottle cappers at a Milwaukee factory.

Behind the camera, she directed the beloved ’80s comedy Big, starring Tom Hanks, making her the first woman to direct a film which grossed over $100 million. That benchmark was hit again when she directed A League of Their Own, a film that celebrated the women’s professional baseball league of the 1940s-1950s.

Born Carole Penny Marshall on October 15, 1943 in the Bronx, she was a tap dancer by the age of 3 and later taught dance at her mother’s dance school. Marshall graduated from Walton High School and went to the University of New Mexico for over two years. After a few years of working various jobs, she moved to Los Angeles to join her brother Garry.

Her acting debut came in The Savage Seven in 1968, which was followed by guest spots on several shows. Marshall’s comedic talents were utilized in The Odd Couple, Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers, and Happy Days – the latter of which lead to Laverne & Shirley. She starred in 178 episodes of the show over eight seasons from 1976 to 1983.

From the mid-’80s to recent years, she appeared in She’s Having a Baby, The Simpsons, Hocus Pocus, The Odd Couple: Together Again, Get Shorty, Frasier, Bones, Entourage, Women Without Men, was in several episodes of Murder Police, and her final acting performance was in the new Odd Couple TV show.

Marshall made her directorial debut in a 1979 episode of Working Stiffs and several episodes of Laverne & Shirley. The first film she directed was Jumpin’ Jack Flash, the comedy that starred Whoopi Goldberg in one of her earliest roles. After Big, she directed the drama Awakenings, then following A League of Their Own, she directed the trio of comedy-dramas, Renaissance Man, The Preacher’s Wife, and Riding in Cars with Boys. She directed a few episodes of According to Jim and United States of Tara, the TV movie Women Without Men, and she was finishing the documentary Rodman at the time of her passing.