Piacere

Cindy Williams

Cindy Williams is an actress best known for her role as Shirley Feeney on the television sitcom Laverne & Shirley, which ran from 1976 to 1982. The show, which was derived from characters she and her co-star Penny Marshall played on Happy Days, was one of the most watched shows on television during its era.

In addition to her television work, Cindy starred in numerous movies, including George Lucas’s American Graffiti (1973), for which she earned a BAFTA nomination as Best Sup porting Actress, and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974). In 2015, Cindy published her mem oir, Shirley I Jest.

Cindy is an honorary member of the Order Sons & Daughters of Italy in America’s Grand Lodge of California.

Tell us about your Italian background.

My grandparents, Ernesto Bellini and Anna Messina Bellini, left Catania, Sicily, in 1908 and immigrated to America through Ellis Island. They lived in an apartment on 81 st Street in Manhattan, where my mother, Frances, was born in 1910. My grandmother’s younger brother, Joe Messina, joined them that same year but later went on to Dallas, Texas, where many of the Messina family had settled and established a shoe shop. My grandfather died in New York and my grandmother and mother moved to Dallas and joined the rest of the Messina family. My cousin, Mario Messina, fought in World War II and was taken prisoner by the Germans. While in prison, he was starved and said he dreamed of nothing but food. When he was released, he went back to Dallas and introduced Italian food to the community by opening the famously popular Il Sorrento Restaurant.

Describe how your mom, Francesca, influenced you when you were young.

My mother had a powerful work ethic. I can’t remem ber a time when she didn’t have a job. For many years, she worked as a waitress in a high-end restaurant in Dallas called Town and Country. She would work all day and then come home and cook the most fabulous food. She could cook any thing from perfectly fried okra to an incredible meat sauce that was hearty or delicate, depending on her mood. I thankfully acquired her work ethic, but unfortunately not so much her talent for cooking.

How did you and your Laverne & Shirley counterpart, Penny Marshall, connect over your shared Italian heritage?

Penny’s Marshall’s true Italian name was Masciarelli. Her family came from Abruzzi, Italy. One way to describe how Penny and I connected with our Italian heritage would be “operatic.” We would arrive on the set of “Laverne and Shirley” at 10 a.m., start screaming at each other over lines we disagreed with, perhaps slam a door or two … and by noon turn to each other and ask, “Whadaya wanna eat for lunch?”

Tell us about the importance of faith.

We all need to have the kind of faith that Indiana Jones had when he held The Chalice of Christ and stepped out into the abyss—the faith that God will always hold the stone under our feet. When all is said and done, faith is what we all can cleave to. It’s God’s way of showing us he is present and powerful and here for us. I always say to my children, “Everything is going to be alright.” Those are not just words, it’s the promise of God.

If you were a guest on an Italian cooking show, what meal would you teach us to cook and how did you originally learn it?

My entire family had a talent for cooking. Unfortu nately, my mother and grandmother did not “teach” me to cook. Not only that, they kept the family recipes in their heads, never writing them down. I can make great meatballs and sauce which I learned through some sort of mystical Italian osmosis by watching them cook. I did learn to make a beautiful Chicken Piccata from my friend, Italian chef Nick Grippo. I can demonstrate how to prepare it, but don’t ask me for the recipe. I never wrote it down. I think Mama would approve.