Cindy Williams

American actress who is most widely known for playing Shirley on the TV series Laverne And Shirley (1976-1983). The show ran for 178 episodes, producing some of TV's most wacky and slapstick moments as it revolved around the pair of zany working girls of the '50s-era Milwaukee. After the conclusion of Laverne And Shirley, Williams ran into a dry spell. The last TV series that she was seen in was the short-lived 1993 series, Getting By. However, she and Penny Marshall did a Laverne And Shirley Reunion on 22 May 1995. Williams came out of an awkward childhood. She admits to a short fuse, the result of growing up with an alcoholic dad with an explosive temper. By the age of 16, she learned to get laughs and decided to set her sights on acting. She married Bill Hudson and they had two children, Emily in 1983 and Zack in 1986. Williams met Hudson, Goldie Hawn's ex, in 1981 at a baseball game. Her first reaction was thumbs-down but when he sent her a book for Christmas, she relented and invited him to dinner. Two months later she was pregnant and in another two months, after Hudson got his divorce, married. Goldie was delighted as she and Hudson's two kids, Oliver and Kate, got along fine with Cindy and were soon awed by the presence of a half-sister. She and Hudson, a former musician, worked together in a TV movie Help Wanted - Kids, in 1986. After 18 years together, their marriage unravelled and she filed for divorce on 13 December 2000 in Los Angeles, California. In 2015, her memoir Shirley, I Jest! (co-written with Dave Smitherman) was published. Link to Wikipedia biography