David Lander

David L. Lander will forever be best known as Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman, one of the obnoxious upstairs neighbors on the hugely popular sitcom "Laverne and Shirley." Interestingly, the characters of Squiggy and his dopey pal Lenny actually predate the series by a number of years. Lander and his creative partner Michael McKean first developed the characters in the late 1960s when the two aspiring actors were attending Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University, and refined them during their years in the 1970s Los Angeles improv group The Credibility Gap. When producer Garry Marshall devised a spin-off of his hit "Happy Days" starring his sister Penny Marshall and "American Graffiti"'s Cindy Williams, McKean and Lander were cast as their sidekicks. The bratty duo were popular enough that Landers and McKean recorded a comedy album of '50s rock and roll pastiche in 1979 under the name Lenny and the Squigtones. Lander and McKean also appeared as a double act in a number of films during this period, including Steven Spielberg's war comedy, "1941," and the Robert Zemeckis farce, "Used Cars." After "Laverne and Shirley" went off the air, Lander appeared in occasional films and TV shows, but primarily concentrated on voiceover work. In 1999, Lander announced that he suffered from multiple sclerosis and has since become an active spokesman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He died of complications from the disease on December 4, 2020 at the age of 73.