Twelve days before his death, Marty Nadler stood beside his son Charlie at the Martha's Vineyard Film Center, completing a journey that had begun when he arrived on the Island as a college actor in 1966. Nadler, the screenwriter, actor and stand-up comic known for his work on Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, died on August 26, 2026, at HCA Florida Northwest Hospital. He was 80.

Born Martin Nadler in 1945 and raised in the Bronx, he found his profession in rooms where jokes were currency. He studied theater at Ithaca College, joined fellow students in the Vineyard Players and spent the summer of 1966 performing on Martha's Vineyard. In New York, he worked comedy clubs including the Improvisation and Catch a Rising Star. The Television Academy later placed him among the young writers, with David Letterman and Jay Leno, who sold jokes to Jimmie Walker.

A one-way ticket carried Nadler west. Penny Marshall introduced him to her brother Garry, and Nadler entered the television business as an apprentice writer before moving into the center of network comedy. He became a script consultant on The Odd Couple, story editor and head writer on Happy Days, and producer and story editor on Laverne & Shirley. His other television credits included Chico and the Man, The Hogan Family, Perfect Strangers and Valerie. In a 2018 interview with the Vineyard Gazette, Nadler described the elusive chemistry of the work: “Show business is magical, you get good writing, you get the right cast and it clicks.”

That talent also traveled onto movie sets. Working with Garry Marshall, Nadler helped with dialogue on films including The Other Sister, Runaway Bride, The Princess Diaries films, Raising Helen, Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve, according to the Vineyard Gazette. Audiences could also spot him on screen in Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride and Valentine's Day. His career joined two kinds of comedy work: the private shaping of a line and the public pleasure of delivering one.

Martha's Vineyard formed the other lasting line through Nadler's life. He and Holly Nadler married at Seth's Pond in 1978, bought an East Chop house in 1981 and welcomed their son Charlie on the Island in 1984. The family settled there full time in the early 1990s. Nadler taught as a substitute at Oak Bluffs School, served on town committees, emceed benefits and supported scholarship efforts. On Circuit Avenue, his son later recalled, a short walk could take a long time because so many people stopped to speak with him.

Nadler also made Island life his material. His one-man Very Vineyard shows drew comedy from the rhythms and peculiarities of a small community. In 2011, one performance supported the Martha's Vineyard Center for Living. He told the Gazette in 2018 that he had first come to the Island at 20 and never looked back: “The Vineyard holds a special place in my heart.” The affection ran in both directions, visible not only in the audiences but in the school, committees and local causes that received his time.

His final professional chapter joined family and craft. Charlie became a stand-up comic and screenwriter, and father and son built an act that let two generations trade perspectives on the same stage. Their 2021 Happier Days appearance at the Film Center sold out, the Martha's Vineyard Film Society reported. They performed in Florida and recorded an album in 2025, then returned to the Film Center on August 14, 2026. “It was the last time we performed together,” Charlie told The Martha's Vineyard Times. “We didn't realize that at the time.”

Nadler's work persists in the familiar television episodes he helped shape, in Marshall's films, in recordings of his stand-up and in the father-son special prepared from their final collaboration. On Martha's Vineyard, it also remains in the institutions and audiences he served, and in the local stories he turned into a roomful of laughter.