The Only Major Actors Still Alive From The Cast Of Laverne & Shirley

Decades before shows like “Search Party” took an ever-shifting approach to the comedic TV format, “Laverne & Shirley” was switching things up season after season. The “Happy Days” spinoff started with a pretty consistent premise in its early seasons, focusing on two zany roommates working at a Milwaukee bottling company. By season 5, though, tomboy Laverne (Penny Marshall) and optimist Shirley (Cindy Williams) ended up in the Army Reserves, and season 6 saw them move to Burbank and work as department store gift wrappers. By the final season, Shirley was gone, and Laverne was working in the aerospace industry.

As wild as the twists and turns of “Laverne & Shirley” were, the show had some constants across its eight seasons, including the presence of neighbors Lenny (Michael McKean) and Squiggy (David Lander), Laverne’s dad Frank (Phil Foster), and Shirley’s fame-hungry ex, Carmine (Eddie Mekka). Most of the actors who made “Laverne & Shirley” a cultural touchstone in the ’70s have since passed away, but a few of the show’s stars are still in the public eye — and some have done the best work of their careers in recent years.

Actor, screenwriter, and musician Michael McKean has had several Renaissance periods across his considerable career, which kicked off with his turn as fan favorite character Lenny in “Laverne & Shirley.” He only had a handful of minor credits before getting cast as Lenny on the series, a role he played for 149 episodes. Soon after, McKean became a frequent collaborator with comedic director Christopher Guest, appearing in movies of his like “This is Spinal Tap” and “A Mighty Wind.”

To characterize McKean’s Emmy-nominated turn as Chuck McGill in “Better Call Saul” as a comeback would be to imply he’d ever left, but the artist has always stayed active in Hollywood, appearing in movies like “Clue” and “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” and in TV shows including “Dinosaurs,” “Dream On,” “Grace & Frankie,” and “Good Omens.” McKean was also a castmate on “Saturday Night Live” for three seasons in the ’80s, impersonating Bill Clinton, Howard Stern, and several other famous faces. Most recently, he appeared as the President on Netflix’s political thriller series “The Diplomat.”

McKean earned an Oscar nomination for his “A Mighty Wind” song “A Kiss At The End of the Rainbow,” and won a Grammy for the film’s title tune. Several of his scripts have also been made into movies, and he even co-wrote “This is Spinal Tap.” McKean has additionally worked as a director, producer, and composer, and appeared on stage in plays like “Hair,” “The Best Man,” and “Hairspray.” Along with Bob Odenkirk, he’s set to star in a Broadway revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross” in 2025 (via Deadline).

Another “Laverne & Shirley” star with more than one career-defining role under their belt, Leslie Easterbrook played self-involved bombshell Rhonda in the sitcom. Her second super-famous role came in 1984 when Easterbrook first donned a police uniform to play formidable, highly sexualized cop Debbie Callahan in “Police Academy.” The comedy movie took off and inspired several sequels, with Easterbrook’s Debbie climbing the ladder of authority with each one, eventually becoming a District Attorney in the short-lived TV spinoff.

Aside from the “Police Academy” franchise and “Laverne & Shirley,” you might also recognize Easterbrook from her collaborations with musician and filmmaker Rob Zombie, who cast her in both his “Halloween” movies and “The Devil’s Rejects.” Her filmography also includes appearances in the early Johnny Depp sex comedy “Private Resort,” the Farrelly Brothers’ “The Heartbreak Kid,” the cozy mystery show “Murder, She Wrote,” and the ABC soap “Ryan’s Hope.”

An accident on set caused Easterbrook to start learning about guns, and at one point she became a board member of The California Rifle & Pistol Association. “I was injured on a ‘Police Academy’ video shoot,” the actor told Trainwreck’d Society in 2014. She said a camera operator told her to hold a starting pistol next to her face for a shot, but the resulting sound caused extensive hearing damage. “When I fired the gun, the sharp sound shattered my eardrum. I had been given no earplugs — I didn’t even know I needed them,” she explained. “At that moment I decided if I was going to carry a gun in another movie, I had to learn everything I could about them.”

Former NFL running back Ed Marinaro switched from football to acting in the late ’70s and soon ended up on “Laverne & Shirley.” There, he played Sonny St. Jacques, the landlord for the Burbank building where several main characters lived in season 6. Interestingly, Sonny was the second character Marinaro had played on the show, having appeared as Laverne’s Italian cousin Antonio in a one-off story arc a season earlier.

Marinaro only appeared in 11 episodes of “Laverne & Shirley,” but he made a major impression for TV viewers just a year later when he took the role of Officer Joe Coffey on “Hill Street Blues.” He appeared in six seasons of the crime drama before being killed off, and wouldn’t have a major recurring TV role for more than a few episodes until the football sitcom “Blue Mountain State” rolled around in 2010. He played Head Coach Marty Daniels for all three seasons of the show.

On the big screen, Marinaro has appeared in movies like “Urban Legend: Bloody Mary” and the “Sopranos” prequel “The Many Saints of Newark,” playing a New York crime family capo in the latter. He’s also taken some key TV movie roles, including one as Joey Buttafuoco in the 1992 NBC drama “Amy Fisher: My Story.” Marinaro was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1991, and a few years ago ESPN named him one of the best college players of all time, noting that he could be considered the “last great running back produced by the Ivy League.”

Not to be confused with other similarly named actors, Carole Ita White played Big Rosie Greenbaum across 12 episodes of “Laverne & Shirley” in a role she earned after a cameo appearance as an unnamed character in season 1. White continued acting after the show, and can be spotted in movies like George Miller’s “The Witches of Eastwick” and Joel Schumacher’s “Falling Down.” She has also taken guest roles on shows like “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “The Wayans Bros.” and “Who’s The Boss?” and started regularly appearing as Aunt Connie on the show “Child of the ’70s” beginning in 2012.

Around the time of her “Laverne & Shirley” stint, White also appeared as a celebrity contestant on classic TV game shows like “The $10,000 Pyramid.” In a 2022 interview with Sr. Perspective, the actor said she kept busy during the COVID-19 pandemic with painting, participating in writers’ groups, and performing plays over Zoom.