Garry Marshall ’s 2010 Valentine’s For You

Garry Marshall plans ahead, he just let it slip that his next movie is for Valentine ’s Day… in 2010! Something about 10 Angelinos whose lives run into, or over, each other when Cupid turns stupid. That’s probably not the tagline he’s using, but Marshall is all about getting to the point. “It goes back to Aristotle, 330 BC, he wrote the Poetics – there’s gotta be story.”

At his age, you get the download on the high-brow and the low-brow. Marshall is like a Diplomat of Cool in person, so when buddy Carl Reiner was recently honored on Feb. 7 at the 2009 WGA Awards, Garry Marshall “just hadda show up.” Even in a spiffy black-tie tuxedo, you can almost hear him giving off an ‘Aaaahhyyee,’ like unmistakable TV cool-guy Arthur ‘Fonzie’ Fonzarelli from Marshall ’s series Happy Days. “Smile, wouldja,” he nudges to no one in particular, “we’re having fun here.” A writer, director, actor, producer, who calls himself “just a writer, I was always just writing,” at the WGA’s chichi awards dinner, Garry Marshall shines like a new penny.

Hollywood’s Ambassador of “people don’t talk like that. You gotta make it real” has a blast from the minute he steps out of the limo into this episode of his real life in front of a crush of photographers and reporters. “Am I a legend? I am? I forget that?” Even an exhaustive list of credits from Pretty Woman to The Flamingo Kid to The Princess Diaries to not-out-yet Race to Witch Mountain , which he acts in this year, doesn’t begin to include the details of his influence over three decades. Little details like the fact that he launched the career of Julia Roberts by slamming a jewelry box on her hand during a take of Pretty Woman — that went into the final cut – the one that made her a bona fide superstar, and the only woman in Hollywood to still own the A-List. Before you wonder aloud whether Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) of his Princess Diaries franchise is the new Julia Roberts based on being tapped by Marshall, remember that it’s the ‘fans’ who decide.

“What can I say, I love girls… Italian, Scorpio… but, I’m married for over 45 years – what does that tell you?” During the WGA Awards, Marshall takes the podium in defense of soap operas, the daytime serials as they are called in the trade. “People who watch soap operas don’t call them ‘soaps,’ they call them ‘my stories.’ Like: ‘ Murray , can you call me back, I’m watching my stories?’ Here Fancast shows you what it’s like to hang out with Garry Marshall:

So, are you here for Carl Reiner, and when did you guys first meet?

Garry Marshall: Carl Reiner was one of my mentors; I was a writer on the Dick Van Dyke show. The first time we met, he didn’t like me!

Why not?

Carl didn’t like me because I was a writer who wrote nightclub (acts, one-liners). I hadda prove to him I wasn’t just a joke writer. I did Dick Van Dyke for three years.

How did you make that leap from TV to movies?

Well (Carl) did!

What does that mean, it’s easy or something? If Carl could do it?!

No. You know what I mean — I saw him do it.

What’s your favorite all-time Carl Reiner project, it can be vintage…

You know, I loved The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming – that’s may favorite of Carl’s, of course, and everything else.

How about the movie you made that’s your favorite?

My favorite is one called The Other Sister with Diane Keaton and Juliette Lewis.

Oh yeah, Diane Keaton was in it, that one was different for you – did you write it too?

I wrote it; I directed it – I love that picture.

What about TV that you’ve done?

My favorite TV show I ever did is a little show called Happy Days.

That was a big little show, changed the culture, the world of TV!

I wrote a book about it; Paul Williams did the music.

Wait, the Happy Days book is a stage production? Paul Williams wrote it? You know Paul Williams?

Yes. “Rainy Days & Mondays,” and he did the music of the original Happy Days? Paul did the score, the music, now it’s out. I just got back from Toronto .

Fonzie on stage?

Yeah. So forget the Ponzi go see the Fonzie, that’s what I say.

You act too; not in this though, huh?

No. My favorite role — I did a show called Lost in America with Albert Brooks. I was the casino operator. That was my favorite I’ve been in – that and my sister’s (Penny Marshall) movie, A League of Their Own.

Where’s Penny tonight?

She don’t come here; she sits home – she has a lovely home. But she should get out more.

Maybe you should throw her a movie. What?

She’s bicoastal anyway, always in New York.

There are so many Marshalls in show business.

My kid (Scott Marshall) is a good director; he’s got Ren Faire (which has changed titles and leads from Lohan to Ricci) coming up with Christina Ricci.

What do you like doing best: directing, writing, acting, producing?

I do all the other jobs, but I do what I do because I am a writer. I was writing just, writing, then the other stuff.

All from writing, seriously?

Everything I have ever achieved, I have achieved because I was a writer. Looks like a bunch of writers here tonight, except for all the movie stars. I love this red carpet stuff!