There were not-so-happy days too. Marion Ross talked about her tense relationship with Happy Days costar Tom Bosley in the beginning of the sitcom’s run during her interview on the Today show Tuesday, April 3.
Ross told Megyn Kelly that she and her onscreen husband — who passed away in 2010 — didn’t click “for a couple of years,” a topic she writes about in her memoir, My Days: Happy and Otherwise. “Either Tom Bosley had somebody else in mind right at the beginning … but I had a very small part at the beginning. My lines were like, ‘Oh, Howard,’ ‘Oh, children, you’re not eating,’” she explained.
The 89-year-old actress, who played Mrs. Cunningham for 11 seasons, eventually got on better terms with her costar. “So we had to work our way through that. Because I learned to love him, I loved him and we became very close friends,” she added.
Ross also said she asked the show’s creator, Garry Marshall, if their roles could be expanded: “At one point I asked him, as we went on a few years, I said, ‘Could you think Tom and I could have more to do in the show?’ And he said, ‘It’s not about you. It’s about the boys.’”
The Gilmore Girls alum had a surprise reunion with a couple of members of the cast when Kelly brought out Anson Williams and Don Most, who portrayed Potsie Weber and Ralph Malph, respectively. While recounting how they felt about Henry Winkler’s breakout success as Fonzie during the series’ run, Williams revealed that he didn’t mind at all because Winkler was generous enough to buy him a house.
My Days: Happy and Otherwise is out now.
