10 Actors Who Became Awesome Directors

The late, great Penny Marshall started out her showbiz career with TV bit-parts throughout the '60s and '70s, including a small role in her brother Garry's hit sitcom Happy Days.

The popularity of her character, Laverne DeFazio, led to the hugely successful spin-off series Laverne & Shirley, which ran for eight seasons and saw Marshall nominated for three Best Actress Golden Globes.

During the course of the show, she directed four episodes, eventually giving her the taste to move into helming theatrical features, starting with 1986's Jumpin' Jack Flash.

Though that Whoopi Goldberg-starring comedy was a critical and commercial dud, she followed it up with an enviable trio of fantastic films - the Tom Hanks-starring comedy classic Big, the Robert De Niro-Robin Williams drama Awakenings, and the crowd-pleasing sports comedy A League of Their Own.

If Marshall never reached these highs again, that three-peat alone was enough to place her in the pantheon of all-time great female filmmakers, not least that Big was the first film directed by a woman to gross more than $100 million in the U.S.