Ronny Hallin, Actor and Producer on Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, Dies at 88

Ronny Hallin, an actor and television producer who worked on some of the best-known sitcoms of the 1970s and 1980s, has died. She was 88. Deadline reported that she died peacefully at home on Tuesday, Oct. 27, according to her daughter, Penny Hallin.

Hallin was born on Jan. 2, 1938, in New York City. She was the daughter of Anthony Masciarelli and Marjorie Irene. She grew up as the middle child, with her older brother Garry Marshall and her younger sister Penny Marshall. Both siblings went on to build famous careers in television and film.

Her own screen work began in 1974, with an episode of The Odd Couple. She later played Maxine on Laverne & Shirley in 1982, the spinoff of Happy Days that Garry Marshall helped create. Hallin also acted in the films Frankie and Johnny (1991), Exit to Eden (1994) and Raising Helen (2004).

Much of her long career happened behind the camera. Beginning in 1977, she produced and cast shows including Blansky's Beauties, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, Joanie Loves Chachi and Happy Days. Producers shape a show's day-to-day running, from budgets and schedules to the people hired to fill each role. Casting means choosing who appears on screen. Later, she produced on Family Matters, Perfect Strangers and Step by Step.

Hallin is survived by three daughters and several grandchildren. Her death follows that of her sister Penny Marshall, who died in 2018 at age 75, according to Variety. Penny Marshall had played Laverne on Laverne & Shirley. Garry Marshall, the eldest of the three siblings, died in 2016, and he was survived by his wife of 53 years, Barbara Sue Marshall.

For many viewers, the names on a sitcom's credits rarely register. Hallin's career shows how much of that work happens off screen, in rooms where a cast is put together and a season is kept on schedule. Her family has not announced funeral or memorial arrangements.