The long reach of Garry Marshall: Four familiar faces who started with him

The legacy of Garry Marshall as a writer, producer and director in both TV and movies has few equals in entertainment. As remembrances began pouring out of Hollywood via social media, it wasn’t hard to imagine you could connect almost any famous person to his long and influential lineage.

Go ahead and try it: Beyonce? In 2002, she costarred in “Austin Powers: Goldmember” with Mike Myers, who received one of his first TV gigs on the sketch show “Bizarre” led by the comic John Byner, who early in his career appeared on “The Odd Couple,” which was developed for television by . . . Garry Marshall.

Below, four more familiar faces who — like the stars of “Happy Days,” “Mork & Mindy” and “Pretty Woman” — received a significant boost in their careers on the many platforms Marshall created.

David Letterman

Having relocated from his native Indiana to Los Angeles in the late ’70s, Letterman was a regular at the Comedy Store with only occasional TV credits when he appeared on and early season of “Mork & Mindy” in 1979. With the era-specific spread collar and a medallion around his neck, Letterman played shady, est-style guru named Ellsworth.

Tom Hanks

Though Tom Hanks’ career was given an early jump-start with the initially popular but short-lived cross-dressing sitcom “Bosom Bodies,” he endured a few lean years in the early ’80s. Appearing as a guest star on “Happy Days” in 1982, Hanks played against type as a karate enthusiast who attempted to pick a fight with the Fonz. It did not end well, but Hanks clearly made an impression — Marshall tabbed him to star in his darker-than-it-looks 1988 father-son drama, “Nothing in Common.” Harvey Keitel, Ed Begley Jr. and Crispin Glover were also among the many seen on “Happy Days” early in their career.

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Albert Brooks

A comic auteur who went on to an influential career as a director in his own right (his filmography was recently added to Netflix), Brooks earned just his fourth TV credit with an appearance on the first season of “The Odd Couple.” He went on to earn an Oscar nomination for his role in “Broadcast News.”

Demi Moore

If you blink you might miss her, but Moore made an uncredited appearance in Marshall’s debut feature film as a director, “Young Doctors in Love.” The goofy 1982 spoof of medical dramas maybe doesn’t have the same sort of cultural gravitas as “Pretty Woman,” but it did also feature Michael McKean (a Marshall favorite who played Lenny in “Laverne & Shirley”), Sean Young and an also uncredited Susan Lucci.

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