Diagnosed with advanced cancer, actress Marcia Strassman got by with a little help from her friends—Penny Marshall, Laraine Newman and Anjelica Huston.
(Join the discussion: how does friendship heal you?)Marcia Strassman ignores the scrum of photographers gathered on the sidewalk as she briskly strides into Orso, a West Hollywood bistro frequented by the showbiz crowd. The actress, who doesn’t look much different from when she played Gabe Kaplan’s fresh-faced wife on the 1970s hit sit-com Welcome Back, Kotter, is here for a late lunch with two of her best pals, actress-director Penny Marshall and Saturday Night Live alum Laraine Newman.
Heads bob in the upscale eatery when Marshall, instantly recognizable in shorts and black sneakers, arrives along with the very petite Newman. They join Strassman, and the three repair to a corner table on the restaurant’s tree-shaded patio. As they mull over the menu, the longtime confidantes fall into a comfortable conversational shorthand, gently ribbing one another about their highly specific food preferences.
“I only eat vegetables and fruit—no sugar, no gluten, no wheat, no bread—and plenty of fish,” Strassman says.
“But the mercury is OK?” Marshall shoots back, peering dolefully at Strassman over the rimless shades that are perched on her nose.
“You’re busting my chops,” Strassman jokingly complains.
COMRADES IN CANCER
Their banter covers up a poignant back story. In March 2007, Strassman was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer that had spread to her bones. Since then, Marshall and Newman have been with her for every stage of her treatment, forming the nucleus of an extensive support network.
There’s no way of proving that the protective cocoon created by her friends has played a key role in Strassman’s continued well-being. But recent research suggests that her pals may have helped buffer her from the ravages of her disease. The famous Nurses’ Health Study from Harvard, for one, found that women who developed breast cancer and had 10 or more close friends were much more likely to survive the disease than women who lacked that kind of network. And research at Ohio State University discovered that women who participated in an intervention program with group support showed improved immune functioning. So, for a cancer sufferer like Strassman, meeting friends for lunch isn’t just fun—it’s also good, perhaps lifesaving, medicine.
ON THE HOLLYWOOD CIRCUIT
As two wisecracking New York transplants, Strassman and Marshall became fast friends when they met in L.A. more than 35 years ago. They both lived in West Hollywood, had the same hairdresser and hung out with the same crowd. Marshall, who has managed to live in car-culture central without ever getting behind the wheel, often called on Strassman to chauffeur her.
After Kotter, Strassman played the mom in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and its sequel Honey I Blew Up the Kid, and had recurring roles on the TV shows Providence, Tremors and Third Watch; Marshall went on from the success of starring in the Laverne and Shirley series to become the director of such hit movies as Big, Awakenings and A League of Their Own. As their careers developed, the two women continued to bond.
At lunch, Marshall recalls how she always knew she could count on Strassman, giving as an example the time, some years back, when her daughter, Tracy Reiner, now 45, was in a car accident: “Marcia was the most reliable, making sure everything was OK—I trust her with my own child.”
In the early 1980s, L.A. native Newman joined the gang after meeting Strassman at one of Marshall’s annual birthday bashes. Another longtime friend is actress Anjelica Huston, who couldn’t make the lunch but later explained, “We were all part of a pack of headstrong women who liked having fun.”
