Julia Roberts Remembers Late 'Pretty Woman' Director Garry Marshall
The film and TV legend died earlier this month.
— -- Julia Roberts is the latest celebrity to pay tribute to the late producer and director Garry Marshall, who died last week at the age of 81.
The actress worked with Marshall on the 1990 classic "Pretty Woman." In a role that earned her an Oscar nomination, Roberts played a Hollywood prostitute, Vivian Ward, hired by wealthy businessman Edward Lewis -- Richard Gere's character -- to escort him to various social events. He ends up falling for her.
"To know Garry Marshall was to love him," Roberts told People magazine. "And I was luckier than most to have loved him for my entire adult life and luckier still to have been loved by him because his love was unconditional, inexhaustible and magical."
Listing some of the sitcoms Marshall created when she was young, like "Happy Days" and "Laverne & Shirley," Roberts commented, "I have said before that Garry Marshall raised me, and it is rather true."
Roberts, 48, says that through his shows, Marshall taught viewers "to be nice, that life could be simple and sweet and, most importantly, that friends and family were everything.
"It is my great fortune that there were only a few short years between Happy Days going off the air and Garry Marshall walking into my life and changing it in so many ways," she remembered. "His family was everything to him, and it showed in every piece of work he ever did."
Marshall, who also directed Roberts in "Runaway Bride," "Valentine's Day" and the recent film "Mother's Day," died July 19 from complications of pneumonia following a stroke.