Frankie and Johnny

“FRANKIE & JOHNNY”
PRODUCTION INFORMATION

Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer star in “Frankie & Johnny,” the funny and tender story of a short order cook and a waitress who meet at a New York City diner and begin an unlikely courtship. The comedy was produced and directed by Garry Marshall, the director of “Pretty Woman.”
When Johnny, the new cook at a neighborhood cafe, decides to win over the waitress Frankie, he soon finds getting her to make a commitment to him is a tall order. Frankie doesn’t believe that falling in love is any guarantee of happiness ever after, but Johnny has chosen this woman and this moment to take a stand against loneliness.
The screenplay was adapted by Terrence McNally from his play “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” Alexandra Rose and Charles Mulvehill are the executive producers and Nick Abdo is the co-producer of the film for the Motion Picture Group of Paramount Pictures, a Paramount Communications company.
Six-time academy Award-nominee Al Pacino and two-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer play Johnny and Frankie, co-workers at Nick’s Apollo Cafe.
Hector Eliiondo, who won a Movie Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe and American Comedy awards for his role in “Pretty Woman,” plays Nick, the restaurant owner. Four-time Tony-nominee Kate Nelligan is the saucy waitress Cora.
Nathan Lane, who won a Best Actor Drama Desk award for his role in McNally’s “The Lisbon Traviata,” plays Frankie’s neighbor and confidant, Tim. Comedienne Jane Morris is the cranky waitress Nedda.
The other family members, friends and co-workers of Frankie and Johnny, as well as restaurant regulars, are played by an ensemble cast of talented supporting actors, including Tim Hopper, Dey Young, Gordon Belson, K Callan, Al Fann, Ele Keats,
Phil Leeds, Fernando Lopez, Greg Lewis, Golde McLaughlin, Sean O’Bryan, DeDee Pfeiffer, Glenn Plummer, and Shannon Wilcox.
Director-producer Garry Marshall describes “Frankie & Johnny” as “not a fairy tale but realistic love story about regular people with universal problems about love, loneliness, sex, self-esteem, the whole human dilemma. – The film is dedicated
to all those women who think Prince Charming got hit by a truck and isn’t coming; and to the guys who are sure Cinderella is locked away somewhere and won’t be showing up before or after midnight.
“Most people today in our complex society do not have a wonderful life. So they bring their baggage into the relationship. ‘Frankie & Johnny’ is about how you sort out the baggage and have a relationship anyway because nobody is perfect.”
“Johnny sees that Frankie is struggling with something,”
says Al Pacino. “Behind her wall he believes she is empathetic and compassionate. Johnny feels her need to be drawn out, and that need in her is tremendously attractive to him.”need in her is tremendously attractive to him.”
“The wonderful thing about being human and the san thing about being human is no matter how many times we ger hurt, we still manage to allow ourselves to have hope and to open up one more time,” comments Michelle Pfeiffer.
Screenwriter Terrence McNally didn’t have the legendary jealousy-ridden lovers from the famous song in mind when he wrote the play upon which the film is based, although McNally’s protagonists are aware of their mythic namesakes. “We were a
couple before we met,” Johnny tells Frankie.
McNally reflects on the feelings that inspired the writing of the film and play: “As individuals, we’re getting more and more self-sufficient and more separate. I don’t think it’s good to be able to say, ‘I don’t need anybody.’ There’s still the yearning. This story is a celebration of people who follow the yearning — and are willing to enter the joust once more.” The love of your life can be sitting right there and you don’t know it. Love is a miracle of the everyday. This is not about champagne and caviar. Frankie and Johnny have meat loaf sandwiches and milk.”
Marshall and McNally spent last summer working on the transition of the play to screenplay. Both creators love the workshop process and held many readings of the script as the writing progressed.
In the original script for the stage, McNally describes Frankie as having “striking but not conventional good looks, a sense of humor and a fairly tough exterior. She is also frightened and can be very hard to reach.”
In the screenplay, McNally brings Frankie back to the small Pennsylvania town of her childhood and Marshall cast DeDee Pfeiffer (Michelle’s Sister) to play Frankie’s cousin Toni, happily married with kids. Still single and pragmatic about it,
Frankie returns to her solo existence in New York.
Executive producer Alexandra Rose states, “This isn’t necessarily a New York City story. New York is symbolic of that vast crucible into which people fall; where they go in hope of a great change in their lives.”
Johnny is a man in the midst of life-altering change and wants to bring Frankie with him. A loquacious suitor, he inundates this wary woman with words of praise and pledges of love. True to McNally’s original description (“His best feature is his personality. He works at it.”), Johnny uses every resource he has to make the reluctant Frankie open up to the nature of trusting, relating and loving.
“Johnny has a gift for knowing the moment,” says Garry Marshall. “The other thing he has that you need for romance is
humor because humor is part of what makes people fall in love.”

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY AND ROMANCE IN THE ’90S

Like previous famous motion picture couples, Frankie and Johnny characterize the society that inspired their invention.
One of the questions posed by the film is the dilemma of what is better for an individual — being alone or having a relationship that may not work out?
“You know, when I first started in comedy, people said, ‘Well, I guess you sit around and make all these jokes,”
Marshall observes. “And really we didn’t. You sit around and mostly remember pain and embarrassment and turn it into humor.
And in drama, you remember the pain and embarrassment and turn it into drama. Pain is a big part of life.
“Al Pacino is playing a light-hearted and charming guy — a driving force, always going for the positive,” says Marshall.
“And Michelle Pfeiffer plays a woman whose self-esteem is so lows he doesn’t feel attractive and, in the beginning, isn’t particularly.”
“Years ago, Frankie came to New York with the vague intention of becoming an actress,” explains Pfeiffer. “She quit high school and now she’s self-conscious about her lack of education. But at the time she wanted to get out of where she was. I don’t think she was ambitious enough or particularly talented enough to break into acting. Nor did she have the kind of personality that could take the bouncing back all the time.
“Then, out of needfulness or naivete, she ended up in a series of negative relationships. People who’ve been hurt in life in some way, whether it’s physical or emotional, often come
to a psychological or emotional shutdown, and I think that’s where she is when Johnny comes into her life.
“At first she thinks, ‘Who is this guy?’ She thinks he’s a complete jerk. But he doesn’t take no for an answer. He is relentless,” Pfeiffer says. “I think Frankie is very courageous to try love again.”
“Frankie and Johnny are both survivors,” observes Al Pacino, “but what’s interesting about him is that he’s taking his disappointment and turning it into something positive.
“Johnny has just done some time in prison for forgery, for taking shortcuts. But while he was there he learned there was something he loved to do — he loved to cook. He wants to be a great cook and I think there’s something really moving about that because basically that’s what we look for–a way to express ourselves–whatever it is that we do. If we can do that, we’re lucky.
“And Johnny is always looking to learn. Word-learning is symbolic for his development. He’s in his middle age and he’s found that he has aspirations. It’s a youthful quality. And I think if we can find that in our own lives–at any age, at any period–it’s an affirmation. This is a guy who has made a second chance for himself.”
Executive producer Alexandra Rose believes men as well as women will readily understand Frankie’s situation. “Everyone has been hurt and disappointed in a relationship. Often people don’t open up to love because they’re afraid. They think they’re unworthy of someone else’s love. If they don’t value themselves, they’re suspect of someone who does. And, the saddest part is they’re afraid to fall in love because they’re afraid the person’s going to go away. If they open up and become vulnerable and this person leaves, they’ll be totally bereft and wounded again.
“That’s when they retreat to the apartment with the VCR and the pizza and insist, ‘I’m a self-contained person, I don’t need anybody else. I don’t want anybody else. Someone could hurt me and I don’t want to be hurt anymore.”
Marshall observes, “Many people say ‘I should have married that girl back in high school,’ or whatever. They think they missed their moment.”
“Actually, there are many moments in life,” comments Michelle Pfeiffer, “many opportunities that present themselves to us, whether it’s in a relationship or another kind of opportunity. It’s up to us, where we are, how open we are to it.
It’s timing.”
Pfeiffer emphasizes that Frankie is courageous as well as straightforward. “She reached a point in her life–which I think is true of many women her age–where she doesn’t want to live up to somebody else’s image of the perfect woman.
“The Apollo is a world where Frankie feels very safe, very accepted, and non-judged. She’s a good waitress and she likes her customers.”
Watching over this family-run operation is Nick, played by Hector Elizondo. “Life at the Apollo,” the actor comments, “is a microcosm of the world. The Apollo is a gathering place — in a sense, a small village in the middle of New York City. This
little United Nations is a very romantic and funny place, albeit intense at times. Nick is a bit of a patriarch and penurious as hell. He is very proud. He makes me laugh because he takes himself so, so seriously.
“For ‘Pretty Woman’ I was given full rein to create a man I’d like to work for, a person who perhaps I’d like to be — a delicious sort of challenge. This is a different kind of boss.
Nick feels he has good judgment because he has very strict ethical conduct, but he’s a bit atavistic. As an employer, and Frankie’s friend, he’s a bit ndisturbedabout this romantic thing between Frankie and Johnny.”
Kate Nelligan plays Cora, the sexy, streetwise waitress who first catches Johnny’s attention. “Cora is very attractive and sleeps with a lot of men,” says Nelligan. “She’s looking to stave off loneliness but doesn’t know how to accomplish that.
Her intention is to find somebody and figure out how to live.”
Comedian Jane Morris plays the chain-smoking Nedda, whom she describes as “the old battle-ax. She’s been there forever, every place has one. I had to search for friendly aspects of her but I’ll never reveal them; that’s Nedda’s secret life. If Frankie doesn’t watch out, she will end up old and bitter like Nedda.”
Garry Marshall adds, “Prince Charming or Cinderella may already be there in your life — the person next door, the person who works next to you, or the person you meet on the bus.
They’re a little flawed, but it’s them.”

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

“Frankie & Johnny” began filming January 29 at Paramount Studios and the adjacent Raleigh Studios in Hollywood. Before filming would be completed in New York City, interiors and some local Los Angeles location work were done during a three-month period concluding in the Sacramento area, where northern California highways doubled for the Pennsylvania countryside; and where Folsom prison–built in the 1880s of granite in the style of the Eastern penitentiaries–was used for the scene in which Johnny and his friend Les are released from a Pennsylvania prison.
Garry Marshall’s goal was to create an atmosphere of creative freedom on the set — “where anybody can suggest anything, try anything, say anything. I try to make them feel that I am like the net — you can go as high as you want and there’ll be the net and you’ll be fine.”
Nick’s Apollo Cafe, both interior and exterior, was built on an enormous Hollywood soundstage under the supervision of production designer Albert Brenner, a former New Yorker. The Chelsea area-styled restaurant seated approximately 200 and was flanked by a flower shop and a brick commercial building, alongside a street filled with bumper-to-bumper traffic with horns blaring, drivers swearing and the occasional fender-bender. The large set facilitated a lifelike flow of characters in and
out of a busy diner, including Johnny, who first visits the cafe with the help wanted section of the newspaper folded under his arm.
On the set, director of photography Dante Spinotti controlled the interior lighting by means of a computer programmed dimmer board operated at the side of the stage by a specially-trained gaffer. Each lamp was connected to one of 64 patches on the dimmer board so that the operator could dial in a lighting change from 30 to 100%, often to a fraction, to precisely evoke the time of day or night of the scene being filmed.
Central to the action in the diner is the open kitchen situated in the middle of the restaurant. Here Johnny, Tino,  Peter, Jorge, and Luther keep the orders moving along in a fully functioning kitchen. The operation was equipped with commercial
stoves and ovens, along with a charbroiler, a salamander (heater), a deep fryer, and an all-purpose griddle.
While Al Pacino never went the route of the unknown actor waiting tables, he says he really enjoyed the experience of being a short order cook and practiced in New York at a restaurant and with friends who did have the experience.
“It’s a kind of joyful thing to do and an interesting challenge,” says Pacino. “You’ve got your french fries working here and on the griddle you’ve got your eggs and a hamburger. It’s fun to see if you can get all those things to come out at the same time. Johnny’s wild in the kitchen.”
Restaurateur Steve Restivo, a friend of Garry Marshall, examined the kitchen and gave Pacino some tips on handling pans, whipping eggs, cutting, slicing, boning; and shared pointers about keeping the griddle clean with the flat end of a spatula
and putting a towel on the oven when a dish is ready. Restivo appears on screen as Andreas, the night cook.
The dining area of the restaurant is decorated with a huge mural of Greece as befits its proud Greek-American proprietor.
Nick is also an avid soccer fan and player, evidenced by the many photos on display near the cash register — and the sling on his arm .
A portion of the New York Flowermart was created in a large warehouse that greensman Randy Martens and set dresser Kathe Klopp stocked to the rafters. Their shopping list included 20,000 carnations, 40,000 chrysanthemums, thousands more roses and gladioli, and 400 orchids, including cymbidian corsages  one of which Johnny will pin on Frankie during their first date.
The floral selection encompassed Eastern nursery stock such as juniper, ficus and other typical New York houseplants.
Lower Manhattan is evoked in “Frankie & Johnny” through Frankie’s tiny apartment, typical of old West Side low-rent buildings, where Frankie has lived since arriving from Pennsylvania many years ago. This irregular one-room affair is barely a studio apartment.
A minimal kitchen is squeezed into a former hallway with a fold- down ironing board as the only counter. A sofa opens to a bed at night, consuming the limited floor space.
But, as befits its former grander life, the apartment has a wonderful large bay window. Unfortunately, the only views available are into the windows of apartments facing the back courtyard. These residents are observed by Frankie from her
apartment. For these anonymous characters established by McNally  in the screenplay, Brenner constructed two more apartment buildings on Stage 17.
Costume designer Rosanna Norton says she received many details from Marshall about the neighbors whose lives are glimpsed through Frankie’s window.
“In all, there are 94 identifiable characters in the story,” says Norton, “and while each of them has a personality, many have no lines. The most effective way to describe these people is by their wardrobe, which is easy if someone’s a nurse, but more of a challenge if they’re the elderly neighbor, for example.
“On this film, it was fun to work out with the actors how they would gussy up the restaurant uniforms to express themselves, just like kids will do with school uniforms. Frankie
uses the plain uniform to hide her body and adds a few of her girlish elephant pins. Cora, on the other hand, hikes it up to a mini-skirt, adds mesh stockings, high heels and tons of jewelry.

Nedda manages to make it plainer with an old sweater and clunky shoes. Even the guys attempt to distinguish themselves beyond the uniform, like Johnny with his colorful array of bandannas.”

The play that inspired “Frankie & Johnny” opened on October 27, 1987 at the Manhattan Theatre Club and was transferred to the Westside Arts Theatre in early December that year. “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” won the Dramatists Guild’s Hull Warriner Award for Best Play and was nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award. Terrence McNally’s play opened in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum in November 1988 and, since then, has been staged in hundreds of productions worldwide.

ABOUT THE CAST

AL PACINO (Johnny) is a six-time Academy Award-nominee who has received four Best Actor nominations for “. . . And Justice For All,” “The Godfather Part II,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” and “Serpico,” which also brought him a Golden Globe. He was twice nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his role as Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” and as Big Boy Caprice in “Dick Tracy,” for which he won a 1990 American Comedy award.
The New York actor’s other films include “The Godfather Part III,” “Sea of Love,” “Revolution,” “Scarface,” “Author! Author!,” “Bobby Deerfield,” and “Scarecrow,” for which he received the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. He made
his film debut in 1971 in “The Panic in Needle Park.”
Pacino has won two Tony awards for his starring roles in “The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel” and “Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?” He is a long-time member of David Wheeler’s Experimental Theatre Company of Boston, where he has performed in “Richard III” and in Bertold Brecht’s “Urturo Ui.” In New York and London he acted in David Mamet’s “American Buffalo.” He recently played Mark Antony in “Julius Caesar” at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre.

As a child growing up in the Bronx, he would recreate for his mother and grandparents the characters he saw in movies.
Grammar school teachers encouraged him to apply for the famed High School of the Performing Arts, which he attended while working part-time as a theatre usher.
After studying with Herbert Berghof and later with Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio, Pacino made his professional acting debut in off-Broadway productions of “The Connection” and “Hello, Out There.” He then won an Obie award for “The Indian
Wants the Bronx.”
Al Pacino produced, starred in and co-directed the independent film adaptation of the play “The Local Stigmatic,” shown in March 1990 at New York’s Museum of Modern of Art and the Public Theatre.

MICHELLE PFEIFFER (Frankie) was Oscar-nominated as Best Actress for her performance as singer Susie Diamond in “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” a role that also brought her awards from the New York Film Critics, the National Society of Film Critics, and the Los Angeles Film Critics. Previously, she had received a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Madame de Tourvel in “Dangerous Liaisons.”
Her other films include “Love Field,” “The Russia House,” “Tequila Sunrise,” “Married to the Mob,” for which she received a Golden Globe nomination, “The Witches of Eastwick,” “Sweet Liberty,” “Into the Night,” “Ladyhawke,” and “Scarface,” opposite
Al Pacino.
The actress made her stage debut in the Los Angeles production “A Playground in the Fall” and last summer appeared in Joseph Papp’s presentation of “Twelfth Night” for the New York Shakespeare in the Park Delacorte Theatre program.
Raised in the suburban Southern California town of Midway City, Pfeiffer took acting classes at Fountain Valley High School. She attended junior college and a school for court stenography before deciding to pursue acting. She was a student
of acting teacher Peggy Feury.

HECTOR ELIZONDO (Nick) received a Movie Award as well as nominations for Golden Globe and American Comedy awards for his role as Mr. Thompson, the charming hotel manager, in “Pretty Woman.” In addition to “Pretty Woman,” Elizondo has starred in three other features for director Garry Marshall–“Nothing in Common,” “The Flamingo Kid” and “Young Doctors in Love”–and has made cameo appearances in all of Marshall’s other films.
Elizondo’s other films include “Necessary Roughness,” “Taking Care of Business,” “Leviathan,” “American Gigolo,” “The Fan,” “Report to the Commissioner,” “Thieves,” “Cuba,” and “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3.” His upcoming films include “Samantha”
with Martha Plimpton, “Final Approach” with James B. Sikking, and “Paydirt” with Jeff Daniels.

On television this coming February, Elizondo will be seen as the star of the four-hour mini-series “Burden of Proof,” based on the best-selling novel and sequel to Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent. Elizondo recently starred in ABC’s “Finding the Way
Home” with George C. Scott, TNT’s “Forgotten Prisoners: The Amnesty Files” with Ron Silver, and Showtime’s “Chains of Gold” with John Travolta.
Born and raised in New York City, Elizondo won an Obie award for his portrayal of God in “Steambath” and has appeared on Broadway in “The Prisoner of Second Avenue,” “The Great White Hope” and “Sly Fox,” for which he received a Drama Desk award nomination.

KATE NELLIGAN (Cora) appeared in “Eleni,” “Without A Trace,” “Eye of the Needle,” and “Dracula.” Her upcoming films include Barbra Streisand’s “Prince of Tides” and Patricia Roczema’s “The White Room.” She stars with John Malkovich and Miranda Richardson in the upcoming BBC production “Old Times.”
Nelligan received Tony award nominations for her performances in “Spoils of War,” “Serious Money,” “Moon for the Misbegotten,” and “Plenty,” the latter a role she originated, winning the London critics’ best actress award. Her recent stage work includes Edna O’Brien’s “Virginia” at the Public Theatre and a revival of Terrence McNally’s “Bad Habits” with Nathan Lane at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

The Canadian-born actress spent several seasons with Great Britain’s National Theatre Company and, subsequently, the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Films with NATHAN LANE (Frankie’s neighbor Tim) include “He Said, She Said,” “The Lemon Sisters,” “Joe Vs. the Volcano,” and “Ironweed.”
He won the Best Actor 1989 New York Drama Desk award for his performance in the off-Broadway production of Terrence McNally’s “The Lisbon Traviata.” He reprised his role at the Mark Taper Forum, earning the 1990 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award.
Lane received a Drama Desk nomination for his Broadway debut in Present Laughter,” directed by and starring George C. Scott. He also appeared in New York productions of “Merlin,” “The Wind in the Willows,” “Some Americans Abroad,” and “Bad Habits,” as well as the Los Angeles premiere and national tour of “Broadway Bound” directed by Gene Saks.
On television Lane starred in the series “One of the Boys” and has appeared in “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” “Miami Vice” and the PBS Great Performances presentation of “Alice in Wonderland.”

JANE MORRIS (Nedda) has appeared in such films as “Pretty Woman,” “Men Don’t Leave” and “Nothing in Common.” The actress co-starred in the Imagine TV series “My Talk Show.” She was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for directing Second City Etc.’s “Channel This or Die Yuppie Scum.”
Morris is a founding member of Second City Etc. and Second City in Los Angeles. With her husband Jeff Michalski, she owns and manages the L.A. improv comedy club Up Front Comedy in Santa Monica.

AL FANN (Luther) appeared in “The Fisher King,” Paramount’s “The Naked Gun 21/2: The Smell of Fear,” “Thank God It’s Friday,” “Crossroads,” “The French Connection,” “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” and the upcoming “Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot.”
A recognized performer, educator, author and administrator, Fann is founder and executive director of the Al Fann Ensemble and the Fann Institute for Artistic Development. His award winning play “King Heroin” was performed by his students at theaters across the country, including a command performance for officials at the White House.
Fann, a New York native, wrote the textbook Development of
the Underprivileged Mind, which is used in universities throughout the country. In addition to having served as director on New York’s Board of Education, Fann has taught at Hunter College and organized and directed a magnet school in Los Angeles for television, film, and stage productions.

Fann has made numerous television appearances and is a recipient of New York’s Audelco award and California’s NAACP award for Outstanding Community Contributions.

GREG LEWIS (Tino) is an actor/comedian who has appeared in such films as “Club Fed,” “Johnny Dangerously,” “Angel,” “Running Man,” “Repossessed,” and “Mickey One.” His television appearances include such series as “Night Court,” “Married With Children,” “Murder She Wrote,” “Falcon Crest,” and “Hill Street Blues.”
Lewis, who has performed in theatrical productions of “Promises, Promises,” “Guys and Dolls” and “The Time of Your Life,” has also written several plays, including “Locker Room,” which received the 1990 Drama-Logue award for best production,
and “Beyond the Laughter,” a solo show starring Sammy Shore.
A native of Chicago, Lewis began his career at age 16 as a harmonica player with The Harmonicats.

FERNANDO LOPEZ (Jorge) appeared in “Defiance” and the telefilms “Killer Instinct,” “The Child Saver” and “The Comeback Kid.” His other television appearances include “The Cosby Show” and the afterschool specials “Flour Babico” and “Abbey, My Love.” Lopez studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and has performed on the New York stage in “Toby Tyler At the Circus” and “Sanchocho.”

GLENN PLUMMER (Peter) appeared in “One Cup of Coffee,” “Downtown,” “Funny Farm,” “Colors,” and “Who’s That Girl.” His telefilm appearances include “Wedlock,” “Murderous Vision,” “Heatwave,” and “Hands of A Stranger.” He played a recurring
role in “L.A. Law” and also appeared in such series as “Equal Justice,” “Tour of Duty,” “China Beach,” and “Beauty and the Beast.”
On stage Plummer has performed in “The Task,” “Palladium Is Moving,” “Better Living,” and “Three Ways Home,” all in Los Angeles. 

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Producer-director GARRY MARSHALL directed last year’s romantic comedy boxoffice hit “Pretty Woman.” His other films as director include “Beaches,” “Overboard,” “Nothing in Common,” “The Flamingo Kid,” which he also co-wrote, and “Young Doctors in Love,” which he also executive produced.
Marshall has created, written, produced, and directed 13 television series, including “Happy Days,” “Laverne & Shirley,” “Mork and Mindy,” and “The Odd Couple,” which he developed for television. His television series and their performers have been nominated for 16 Emmy awards, winning ten; and have been nominated for nine Golden Globe awards, winning four. Earlier in his career, Marshall and writing partner Jerry Belson also won an Emmy for “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”
For the theater he has written “Shelves,” which was staged in Chicago; “The Roast,” written with Jerry Belson, which opened on Broadway; and Marshall’s recent play “Wrong Turn at Lungfish,” written with Lowell Ganz, which ran last summer at the
Steppenwolf Playhouse in Chicago.
A native New Yorker, Marshall earned a journalism degree from Northwestern University. He has worked as a jazz musician with his own combo, a reporter for the New York Daily News, and a joke writer for Phil Foster, Jack Parr and Joey Bishop, who brought Marshall to Hollywood in 1962 to write for his show.
As an actor, Garry Marshall appeared as the head of daytime programming in Paramount’s “Soapdish” and as a casino owner in Albert Brooks’ “Lost in America.”

Executive producer ALEXANDRA ROSE worked with Garry Marshall as producer of “Nothing in Common” and “Overboard.” She produced “Norma Rae,” which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and earned Sally Field a Best Actress Oscar, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” and most recently, “Quigley Down Under” starring Tom Selleck. Rose co-produced “Drive-In” and executive produced “Big Wednesday.”

For television she produced the CBS pilots for “Norma Rae” and “Just Us Kids.” With Garry Marshall she executive produced the series “Nothing in Common” for NBC.
Rose was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and received a graduate degree from L’Institut D’Etudes Politiques in Paris.

Executive producer CHARLES MULVEHILL produced “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” executive produced “In Country,” and co- produced “The Godfather Part III,” “The Milagro Beanfield War”
and “Sweet Dreams.” For director Hal Ashby he produced “Harold and Maude,” co-produced “Eight Million Ways to Die,” and associate produced “Being There,” “Coming Home,” “Bound for Glory,” and “The Last Detail.”
Raised in Honolulu, Mulvehill began his career in production as an assistant on the Mirisch Company’s “Hawaii” and “The Hawaiians,” and later on Norman Jewison’s “In the Heat of the Night” and “The Thomas Crown Affair.”

Screenwriter TERRENCE MCNALLY adapted “Frankie & Johnny” from his award-winning play “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” The play, which has been staged in many productions throughout the world, was nominated for the 1987 Outer Critics Circle Award and won the Dramatists Guild’s Hull-Warriner Award, the same honor awarded McNally’s most recent effort, “The Lisbon Traviata,” and his earlier play “Bad Habits,” which also received an Oble.
McNally’s previous screenplay was “The Ritz,” a 1976 adaptation directed by Richard Lester of McNally’s hit stage comedy. His other plays include “It’s Only A Play,” “Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone?,” “Next,” “And Things That Go Bump in the
Night,” “Up in Saratoga,” and the book for the musical “The Rink.” His new play, “Lips Together, Teeth Apart,” is now playing off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club and stars Nathan Lane.
In 1990 he received an Emmy for “Andre’s Mother,” written
for PBS’ American Playhouse, for which he also wrote “Apple Pie,” Last Gasps” and “The Five Forty-Eight,” adapted from a John Cheever short story.
Raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, McNally majored in English at Columbia University and later interned at the Actors Studio.
During his career, he has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller grant and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Co-producer/second unit director NICK ABDO co-produced and was second unit director on “Beaches” and was associate producer and second unit director on “Nothing in Common” and “The Flamingo Kid.” He was associate producer for “Young Doctors in Love” and consultant for “Overboard.”

Born in Glendale and a graduate of California State University, Los Angeles, Abdo left the USC graduate film school to work for Garry Marshall as an apprentice writer/production assistant. Abdo has directed episodic television, including the NBC series “Nothing in Common,” and he has produced four successful pilots, including “Laverne and Shirley.”

Director of photography DANTE SPINOTTI worked previously with Garry Marshall on “Beaches.” Spinotti won Italy’s David award for “Legend of the Holy Drinker” and the Golden Slate award
for “The Berlin Affair.” His films include such international productions as “The Basilious Quartet,” “Sotto Sotto” and “The Legend of the Holy Drinker,” which earned him the 1988 David di Donatello award as Best Cinematographer — an award he has been nominated for on three occasions.
Spinotti’s first film in the U.S. was “Manhunter.” His other films include “Hudson Hawk,” “The Comfort of Strangers,” “True Colors,” “Crimes of the Heart,” “From the Hip,” “Illegally Yours,” and, made in Italy, “Bonvenuto Cellini.”

Production designer ALBERT BRENNER received Academy Award nominations for “Beaches,” “2010,” “California Suite,” “The Sunshine Boys,” and “The Turning Point.” His other films include “Backdraft,” “Pretty Woman,” “Running Scared, “Sweet Dreams,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “Summer of ’42,” “Bullitt,” and “The Hustler.”
Born in New York, Brenner graduated from the New York School of Industrial Arts and worked on department store window displays before World War II. After the war, Brenner was a graduate student at the Yale Drama School and then taught scenic design, costume design and technical theatre at Kansas City Art Institute.
Returning to New York in the early ’50s, Brenner designed live-television shows, including “Camera Three” and “Odyssey,” as well as television commercials and industrial films.

Costume designer ROSANNA NORTON received an Academy Award nomination for “Tron.” Her other films include “Robocop 2,” “The ‘Burbs,” “Innerspace,” “Ruthless People,” “Airplane,” “Carrie,” “The Stuntman,” and “Badlands.”

Editor BATTLE DAVIS co-edited “Awakenings,” “Wild Thing” and “The Ninth Configuration.” He edited “Elvira” and worked on “Glory” and “The Natural.”

Editor JACQUELINE CAMBAS has edited seven films directed by Richard Benjamin: “Mermaids,” “Downtown,” “My Stepmother is an Alien,” “Little Nikita,” “The Money Pit,” “City Heat,” and “Racing with the Moon.” Her other films include “Cat People” and “Zoot Suit,” and she co-edited “Personal Best.”
Originally a Los Angeles schoolteacher, Cambas studied filmmaking at UCLA graduate school and at the American Film Institute.

Composer MARVIN HAMLISCH won Academy Awards for Best Score and Best Song for “The Way We Were,” and Best Score Adaption for “The Sting,” a record-breaking three out of three music Oscars in one year. He has been Oscar-nominated 11 times in all, including for his music in “Shirley Valentine,” “Sophie’s Choice,” “The Spy Who Loved Me,” and “A Chorus Line: The Movie.”
Hamlisch won a Pulitzer prize for drama and a Tony award for Best Score for the Broadway production of “A Chorus Line.” His other Broadway musicals include “They’re Playing Our Song.”
Born in New York City, Hamlisch was admitted to Julliard School of Music at age seven and graduated Cum Laude from Queens College with a bachelor of arts in musical composition.