Lorraine Bracco is best known for her roles in such family fare as the TV drama "The Sopranos" and the Martin Scorsese classic "Goodfellas." Family fare? Sure, both movies were about families, crime families, but families. It was family that prompted Lorraine Bracco to write a new book.

Lorraine Bracco isn't a doctor, but she played the psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi on HBO's "The Sopranos." After Lorraine Bracco battled weight gain with a specialist she gained some health tips and dropped 35 pounds. But it wasn't for vanity or a role. Lorraine Bracco got her inspiration to get in better shape after she took care of her ailing parents.

When Lorraine's parents died in 2010 and 2011, Bracco, 59, decided it was time to get healthy. Bracco started eating better and exercising. She hired a life coach and dropped 35 pounds. Bracco told ABC she eased into her fitness routine but now goes to class three times a week.

She told ABC News "We were sitting there, dividing these medications, who gets what when. It was insane. I watched and realized, 'I don't want to go like that.' I said, 'I want to be the best I could be.' I want to live every day the best I can be. "

Bracco is sharing her health knowledge in a new book called "To the Fullest," which comes out next year.

"I am still a vibrant, contributing human being, and I am not dead yet," she says. "I laugh because I used to wake up and everything ached before I got out of bed. Now I jump out of bed! I'm doing something right."

Lorraine Bracco and Penny Marshall will play a long-time committed lesbian couple on Fox's "Mulaney."

Lorraine Bracco and Penny Marshall, two iconic figures of the big and small screen, are in a league of their own. On movies screens, Lorraine Bracco played Karen Hill, the wife of gangster turned rat Henry Hill in "Goodfellas." Penny Marshall directed classic films like "Big" with Tom Hanks and "Awakenings" with Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

On TV Lorraine Bracco was Dr. Melfi, the psychiatrist who kept sociopathic gangster Tony Soprano on an uneven keel in HBO's "The Sopranos." Penny Marshall was Laverne, with the iconic L on her blouse, in the "Happy Days" spinoff "Laverne and Shirley." Side note, "Happy Days" also spun off "Mork and Mindy" which, along with HBO, launched Robin Williams into the stratosphere. Sadly, it also spawned "Joanie Loves Chacci."

Lorraine Bracco and Penny Marshall will join Martin Short and Elliot Gould for an all-star supporting cast in a Lorne Michaels production. The series is about a comedian living "under the influence of his boss, roommates and neighbor." Marshall and Bracco don't show up until on the second episode. Penny and Lorraine play Tutti and Vaughn, close friends of Mulaney's neighbor Oscar who is played by Elliot Gould. The comedian's boss is played by Martin Short. Mulraney producer Lorne Michaels also produces "SNL" and produced "30 Rock."