Comment on Writer-director Garry Marshall dies at age 81

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Writer-director Garry Marshall, whose deft touch with comedy and romance led to a string of TV hits that included “Happy Days” and “Laverne & Shirley” and the box-office successes “Pretty Woman” and “Runaway Bride,” has died. He was 81. Marshall died Tuesday in at a hospital in Burbank, California of complications from pneumonia after having a stroke, his publicist Michelle Bega said in a statement. The director also had an on-screen presence, using his New York accent and gruff delivery in colorful supporting roles that included a practical-minded casino boss unswayed by Albert Brooks’ disastrous luck in “Lost in America” and a crass network executive in “Soapdish.” “In the neighborhood where we grew up in, the Bronx, you only had a few choices,” Marshall said in a 1980s interview.