Richie Cunningham’s TV Parents Didn’t Get Along on Set of ‘Happy Days’

Howard and Marion Cunningham, the mainstay parents on the 1970s hit comedy Happy Days, were a throwback to the moms and dads of the early days of sitcoms — well-adjusted, wise in the ways of the world and a stable force in a chaotic comedy world. Howard, owner of a hardware store, was the breadwinner; Marion kept the house and a hot meal on the dinner table. The only thing that set the Cunninghams apart from the 1950s parents on Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best? They occasionally got “frisky,” sprinting up the stairs for a randy roll in the hay when the kids were out of the house.

But reality doesn’t always mirror art. While Howard and Marion were hopelessly in love in their Milwaukee home, things weren’t as rosy between Tom Bosley and Marion Ross, the actors who played the Cunningham parents. In fact, Ross said on the Today Show in 2018, she and Bosley “didn’t click for a couple of years.” “It took me quite a while to win him over,” she later told Woman’s World. “He wasn’t very keen on me; I had not been on Broadway, and he had, so he didn’t think too much of me.”

Ross suspected that Bosley had another actress in mind for the part and wasn’t pleased when she landed the role. In her mind, what difference did it make? The part of Marion Cunningham didn’t give her or any other actress much to do. “I had a very small part at the beginning,” she said. “My lines were like, ‘Oh, Howard,’ and ‘Oh, children, you’re not eating.’”

She even went to Happy Days creator Garry Marshall to see if she and Bosley could get a few more lines of dialogue. “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.’”

Ross also got under Bosley’s skin with practical jokes. During one rehearsal, “the Fonz is helping me on with my coat so I turned and I kissed him on the mouth,” she told the Television Academy Foundation.  “And Tom — Howard — is standing there. I continue to talk to Howard and said something, turned around and kissed the Fonz right on the mouth again. Now the audience’s fallen into this hush, and my heart is pounding. I thought, uh-oh, I think we’ve gone too far. … Tom was furious at me.”

But a funny thing happened as the seasons went on — Bosley and Ross eventually became friends. “We had to work our way through that (early animosity),” Ross said on Today. “Because I learned to love him, I loved him and we became very close friends.”