Actress Marion Ross | "My Days: Happy and Otherwise" A Life Well Lived

Our guest today is delightful Marion Ross. Most know her as "Mrs. C" from the long running TV show "Happy Days". However, this is only one part of her amazing career. In this episode, she shares some amazing stories from her days at Paramount, CBS, and rubbing elbows with some film greats, such as Humphry Bogart, Cecil B Demile, just to name a few. Enjoy this trip with me, down memory lane and her fantastic career!
 

Marion Ross  (Happy Days - http://www.bhbpr.com/marionross.htm) - Currently, TV's happiest mother opens up about life on screen and off in her new memoir "My Days: Happy and Otherwise."  For eleven seasons, Marion Ross was head of one of America's favorite television households.  Before she was affectionately known to millions as “Mrs. C.,” Marion Ross worked for two decades as a Paramount starlet, appearing in nearly every major TV series of the 1950s and 1960s-including Love, American Style, in which she donned an apron that would cinch her career. Soon after came the fateful phone call from producer Garry Marshall that made her an “overnight” success, and changed her life.

Marion hails from Albert Lea, Minnesota, and after college at San Diego State University, she proudly began her career under contract to Paramount Studios in the 50's with live TV at CBS in LIFE WITH FATHER. She's proudest of performing with Noel Coward in BLITHE SPIRIT, live at CBS with Sir Noel, Claudette Colbert and Lauren Bacall. In 2001, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2008, was the renaming and dedication of The Marion Ross Performing Arts Center in her home town of Albert Lea. Marion is an Associate Artist at the Globe Theatre, in San Diego, and last appeared there in the summer of 2010 in THE LAST ROMANCE with her darling, the late Paul Michael. She's working on her autobiography which will be out May 2018.
 

In this warm and candid memoir, filled with loving recollections from the award-winning Happy Days team-from break-out star Henry Winkler to Cunningham “wild child” Erin Moran-Ross shares what it was like to be a starry-eyed young girl with dreams in poor, rural Minnesota, and the resilience, sacrifices, and determination it took to make them come true. She recalls her early years in the business, being in the company of such luminaries as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Noel Coward, yet always feeling the Hollywood outsider-a painful invisibility that mirrored her own childhood. She reveals the absolute joys of playing a wife and mother on TV, and the struggles of maintaining those roles in real life. But among Ross's most heart-rending recollections are those of finally finding a soul mate-another secret hope of hers made true well beyond her expectations.

Funny, poignant, and revealing-and featuring Garry Marshall's final illuminating interview-as well as a touching foreword from her “TV son” Ron Howard, and a conversation with her real-life son and daughter, Marion Ross's story is one of inspiration, persistence, and gratitude. It's also a glowing tribute to all those who fulfilled her dreams-and in turn, gave us some of the happiest days of our own lives.

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