Marty Nadler, Writer, Producer and Longtime Garry Marshall Contributor, Dies at 80

Marty Nadler, the writer, producer and stand-up comedian who collaborated with Garry Marshall on projects including Happy Days , Laverne & Shirley , Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride for more than four decades, has died. He was 80.

Nadler died Wednesday in Margate, Florida, of complications from the autoimmune disorder myasthenia gravis, his son, Charlie Nadler, announced.

Starting in the 1970s, Nadler served as lead writer on several sitcoms produced by fellow Bronx native Marshall, including Who’s Watching the Kids and Blansky’s Beauties , and warmed up the audience on many of those shows as well. Related Stories TV Jackie Glass, 'Swift Justice' Host, Dies at 70 Lifestyle Anna Louizos, Scenic Designer for Broadway's 'In the Heights,' 'School of Rock' and 'Avenue Q,' Dies at 69

He contributed jokes to nine Marshall films, among them Pretty Woman (1990), Frankie and Johnny (1991), Runaway Bride (1999), The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), Valentine’s Day (2010) and Mother’s Day (2016). Marshall considered Nadler a good luck charm and gave him a cameo in those movies.

Away from his pal, Nader also worked on such TV comedies as That’s My Mama , Chico and the Man , The Last Resort , Love, Sidney , She’s the Sheriff , The Redd Foxx Show , Perfect Strangers , The Hogan Family and Amen .

Martin Nadler was born in the Bronx on Oct. 13, 1945. His father, Max, was a traveling salesman who died when Nadler was 3, so he was raised by his mother, Betty, who had immigrated from Russia.

“I was always funny in class. I was always in the school plays,” he said in a 2024 intervew. “When I was eight years old, I decided I wanted to go into showbiz.”

Nadler honed his comedy chops as a summer camp counselor and discovered a passion for stand-up while a theater major at Ithaca College.

He returned to New York City after college, pursued acting and became a regular at The Improv, where he got to know the likes of Jay Leno, Richard Lewis and Jimmie Walker and became known as a “comic’s comic.” On New Year’s Eve, he would portray the New Year’s baby, bursting in from a freezing night clad in a diaper.

Jeffrey Kramer, a college friend who had become an actor — he played the deputy sheriff Hendricks in the first two Jaws films — introduced Nadler to The Vineyard Players, a summer stock troupe on Martha’s Vineyard.

After one performance, Penny Marshall came backstage with then-husband Rob Reiner and offered to help him if he ever came west. When he did, the future Laverne & Shirley star picked him up at the airport, put him up for a few weeks and introduced him to her brother Garry. He read a spec script that Nadler wrote, beginning their relationship.

When Nadler was writing for Laverne & Shirley in 1976, he met a writer named Holly Mascott, who came to Paramount to pitch him story ideas, and he gave her a script assignment. They would marry on Martha’s Vineyard in 1978 and buy a home there in 1984.

Nadler retired to South Florida in the early aughts and was an executive producer of iMordecai (2022), starring Judd Hirsch.

Several years ago, after Charlie became a writer and comedian of his own, he invited his dad to perform onstage one night.