Those of us that grew up anywhere from the 70s to the 90s should be able to remember who Cindy Williams is since she was in one of the greatest shows ever made and didn’t stop there. She’s aged a bit but she’s still easy enough to recognize since she doesn’t look all that different from her younger days. She didn’t do much right out of high school and in fact didn’t even get into acting until she was out of college. At that point she started doing commercials and making her way to becoming nationally known as she kept moving her career forward and gaining more and more notice from the right people. After a while she started gaining enough recognition to catch the attention of those that would eventually help her start climbing even higher as she went on to star in TV and film.
All in all it seems like she had a pretty stable career throughout her life and not too many problems unless there were issues that weren’t talked about as much.
She auditioned for the role of Princess Leia.
This comes as kind of a surprise since thinking about anyone else being Leia is kind of hard to imagine at this point, and even back then comparing her and Carrie Fisher it seems like the job should have gone to Fisher anyway. There’s no insult meant to Cindy, but she’s always seemed to have the looks and the acting chops for comedy and drama more than anything and isn’t quite as capable as Fisher was when it came to being serious. Cindy just has too kind of a face to really be that severe and while you might argue that she’s good enough to go severe and even overly-critical, which she can do, she still has never quite held a candle to what Fisher could do in her prime. It’s kind of best that she didn’t get the role since it doesn’t seem like it would have been a good fit for her or the movie. Some people are simply cut out to do different things no matter what they want to audition for. That might sound kind of harsh but the truth is that she made a great career by being more funny and charming than she might have done had she been the no-nonsense, take-charge types like one of her former classmates, Sally Field.
She’s been working steadily throughout most of her career.
Even missing out on a role here or there didn’t manage to slow her down since reading through her resume is like reading a short story since there are enough credits in there to make it obvious that she is a well-accomplished actress and has done a lot of great things in her life. To say that she missed out isn’t inaccurate but it’s kind of comical really since whatever she missed out on she more than made up for by taking on other roles and making it possible for others to remember her in a much different capacity. When life shuts a door it opens another right? Cindy didn’t have any trouble in taking those various pathways to the kind of success that she found during her career. In fact it bears stating that made a very good decision in the path she took since it afforded her a great deal of fame and the kind of notoriety that a lot of actors simply don’t get no matter how hard they try.
Laverne & Shirley is likely her biggest and most well-remembered appearance.
For a while this was one of the biggest shows on TV and it’s been given tribute in a few different movies and shows throughout the history of film. After all it was highly entertaining and while it wasn’t quite as revolutionary in its plot and design it was still extremely funny and introduced a lot of characters that some people could relate to. By the time some of us were growing up we had to settle for reruns since the show was already off the air, but that was just as well since we got to play catch up with the generations before us and learn just what good, wholesome TV was all about back in the day. This was one of the many programs that was considered to be among those that were still widely acceptable by many people and was still edgy enough at times to be considered a great deal of fun for many viewers. Plus, if you really look at it, the two main stars have been seen throughout film and TV ever since as they’ve shown up in various shows and movies. Cindy was in Law & Order for a bit, and Penny Marshall was in a Halloween favorite, Hocus Pocus.
She’s kept her career going this entire time, and is still great to watch whenever she comes on.
