- Born
- Died
- Birth nameCynthia Jane Williams
- Nickname
- Cindy
- Height5′ 4″ (1.63 m)
- Cindy Williams was born Cynthia Jane Williams in Van Nuys, California on August 22, 1947. The Leo was 5'4" and, during her first years on Laverne & Shirley (1976), weighed a dainty 105 lbs. The brown haired, blue-eyed female was born the daughter of Francesca Bellini and Beachard Williams. Her father was an electronic technician, and Cindy grew up in reduced circumstances. She had one sister, Carol Ann Williams, and an older half-brother, Jim from her mother's first marriage.
As a child, she dreamed of being an actress. She used to create and perform her own plays and, as she grew, she wished that one day, Debbie Reynolds would see her in one of those amateur shows and whisk her away and put her in a film. Another thing that brought show business into her life was her alcoholic father's imitations of comics like Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle. She worked as a waitress, while she auditioned for commercials, television guest spots, and feature films. Her first step to fame was a movie in which she tap danced with Gene Kelly. She stepped on Kelly's foot, leaving her "really embarrassed". She landed important film roles early in her career.
Famed director George Cukor cast her in Travels with My Aunt (1972). Her next big role was for George Lucas in American Graffiti (1973), as Ron Howard's girlfriend, for which she earned a BAFTA nomination as Best Supporting Actress. That led to Francis Ford Coppola casting her in The Conversation (1974). The three instant-classic films should have propelled her into movie stardom, but her career inexplicably hit a lull. She couldn't go back to working as a waitress, because she was too well-known.
She was set up in a writing team with Penny Marshall and the girls were called by Penny's brother, Garry Marshall, to do a stint as two fast girls on Happy Days (1974). The public received them so warmly that Cindy and Penny soon got their own show and was referred to everywhere as "Shirley Feeney".
She earned a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in 1978. She left the show in 1982, pregnant with daughter Emily. She was married to Bill Hudson, who had previously been married to actress Goldie Hawn. Williams later gave birth to a son, Zachary, in 1986. She went on to make a few movies and co-produced "The Father Of The Bride" movies with Hudson. They divorced in 2000.
She did Jenny Craig commercials and acted on guest spots on the TV show For Your Love (1998) and reunited with Penny Marshall several times on television. In 2015, her memoir, Shirley, I Jest! (co-written with Dave Smitherman), was published.
Cindy Williams died, aged 75, following a brief, undisclosed illness, in 2023.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Ashley Phipps LavernShrl@aol.com
- SpouseBill Hudson(May 1, 1982 - December 15, 2000) (divorced, 2 children)
- ChildrenEmily Taylor HudsonWilliam Zachary Hudson
- RelativesCarol Ann Williams(Sibling)
- Cute Yet High-Strung Women
- Auditioned for the role of Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), but knew deep down that Lucas wanted a younger actress, which went to Carrie Fisher.
- Wrote with Penny Marshall before acting with her.
- She has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant": American Graffiti (1973) and The Conversation (1974).
- Former waitress at the House of Pancakes.
- Favorite actress is Debbie Reynolds.
- [on leaving the Laverne & Shirley show due to her pregnancy] I thought I was going to come back and they'd hide [her baby bump] behind benches, couches, pillows, and that wasn't it. When it came time for me to sign my contract for that season, they had me working on my due date to have my baby. I said, 'You know, I can't sign this.' And it went back and forth and back and forth, and it just never got worked out. Right after that, [shows] would build nurseries on sets.
- [her thoughts on the Laverne & Shirley show's success] We made sure the joke was always on us, we never made fun of anyone else. We also wanted to keep the wolf nipping at our heels, like how are we going to pay the rent, how are we going to pay the electric bill. So we kept it grounded in that. We also made sure it was extremely funny to us.
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