Age, Biography, and Wiki
Linda Lavin was born on October 15, 1937, and passed away on December 29, 2024, at the age of 87. She was renowned for her broad acting career, which spanned numerous Broadway productions and television shows. Lavin's early life and career were marked by her passion for performing arts, which led her to become a successful actress and singer.
| Occupation | Stage Actress |
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| Date of Birth | 15 October 1937 |
| Age | 87 Years |
| Birth Place | Portland, Maine, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Libra |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 29 December, 2024 |
| Died Place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is limited information available about Linda Lavin's height and weight, but she was known for her energetic stage presence and versatile acting skills.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Linda Lavin was married three times. Her first marriage was to actor Ron Leibman from 1969 to 1981. She then married actor Kip Niven, whom she met on the set of "Alice," from 1982 to 1992. Her third and final marriage was to Steve Bakunas, a musician and artist, whom she married in 2005. Lavin was a stepmother during her second and third marriages but did not have biological children.
After acting as a child, Lavin joined the Compass Players in the late 1950s. She made her television debut in Rhoda and had a recurring role in Barney Miller (1975–1976). She gained fame for playing the title role of a waitress at a roadside diner in the CBS sitcom Alice (1976–1985), a role for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and won two consecutive Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy. She later starred in NBC's sitcom Sean Saves the World and the CBS sitcom 9JKL and took recurring roles in the legal drama The Good Wife (2014–2015) and the sitcom B Positive (2020–2022).
On stage, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play playing a strong-willed mother in the Neil Simon play Broadway Bound (1987). She was Tony-nominated for her roles in Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1970), The Diary of Anne Frank (1998), The Tale of the Allergist's Wife (2001), Collected Stories (2010), and The Lyons (2012). She is also known for acting in It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman (1966), On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1967), Gypsy (1990), The Sisters Rosensweig (1993), and Follies (2011). She made her film debut in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), and later had roles in I Want to Go Home (1989), See You in the Morning (1989) and Being the Ricardos (2021).
In 1984, Lavin played the character of "The Mother" in Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author in a production directed by Robert Brustein at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
After more than a decade away, Lavin returned to the Broadway stage in 1987, winning a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play and her second Drama Desk Award for her role as Kate in Simon's play Broadway Bound. In his review in The New York Times, Frank Rich wrote: "One only wishes that Ms. Lavin, whose touching performance is of the same high integrity as the writing, could stay in the role forever." Theatre critic Charles McNulty wrote of her performance that it "is widely considered one of the most memorable in contemporary Broadway history, winning not just awards but praise approaching the level of myth. The theater critic Gordon Rogoff, extolling 'the power available only to an actor at the height of her own command of detail,' went so far as to describe Lavin's portrayal as 'one of those textbook lessons in great acting...' " She then starred on Broadway in Gypsy as Mama Rose Hovick, replacing Tyne Daly in July 1990. June Havoc saw Lavin's performance in Gypsy and sent Lavin a photo of Havoc's mother, the real Rose Hovick, with a note of appreciation for Lavin's portrayal of the character.
She played Marjorie in The Tale of the Allergist's Wife (2000–2001), co-starring Tony Roberts and Michele Lee, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award, Leading Actress in a Play, and Drama Desk Award, and "nanny" for Helen (young Carol Burnett, played by Sara Niemietz and Donna Lynne Champlin) in Hollywood Arms in Chicago and on Broadway in 2002.
Lavin appeared in 2015/16 on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in a Manhattan Theatre Club production of Richard Greenberg's Our Mother's Brief Affair.
Lavin appeared in cabaret and concert performances. In 2005 she appeared at the Empire Plush Room in San Francisco, accompanied by Billy Stritch and her husband, Steve Bakunas. The Talkin' Broadway reviewer summed up her performance: "Linda Lavin is funny, warm and full of personality." In April 2006 she performed at Birdland (New York) "with her critically acclaimed cabaret act The Song Remembers When", with Billy Stritch. She performed with the Wilmington Symphony (Wilmington, North Carolina) in March 2012.
She left Barney Miller to star in the lead role in Alice, which was a sitcom success that ran from 1976 to 1985 on the CBS network. The series was based on the Martin Scorsese–directed Ellen Burstyn film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Lavin portrayed Alice Hyatt, a waitress and aspiring singer, the character that Burstyn had played. Lavin performed the series' theme song, "There's a New Girl in Town," which was written by David Shire and Alan and Marilyn Bergman and was updated for each of the first six seasons. During the series' nine-season run, Lavin won two Golden Globe Awards and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, and gained experience directing, especially during the later seasons. Lavin also played a dual role in Alice, as Debbie Walden, the wizened and former landlady of the character Vera Louise Gorman-Novak. Lavin also made numerous television appearances outside of Alice, including hosting her own holiday special for CBS, Linda in Wonderland (1980). She acted in two sitcoms, Room for Two (1992–93) and 1998's Conrad Bloom. In Room for Two, she played a mother who moved in with her daughter, played by Patricia Heaton, who has a show on a local television station. The daughter gives Lavin's character her own segment, called "Just a Thought", at the end of her program.
After working in theater for many years, Lavin was cast in the NBC television sitcom Sean Saves the World (2013–14) playing Sean Hayes' pushy, meddling mother Lorna. The Los Angeles Times interviewer noted: "A highlight of the show is the wonderful chemistry between Lavin and Hayes, who exchange repartee and quips with breezy ease. And the cast seems smitten with her."
In June 2024, it was announced that Max Mutchnick and David Kohan had created a The Golden Girls-like TV series set in Palm Springs, with Matt Bomer and Nathan Lane as Bunny Schneiderman. Lavin played Lane's mother, Sybil Schneiderman. The series, Mid-Century Modern streams on Hulu. At the time of her death, seven of ten episodes of the series had been filmed, and Lavin's character was subsequently written out of the series in the episode "Here's To You Mrs. Schneiderman."
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| Husband | Ron Leibman (m. 1969-1981) Kip Niven (m. 1982-1992) Steve Bakunas (m. 2005) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of her death, Linda Lavin's net worth was estimated to be $6 million, primarily accumulated from her successful acting career and wise property investments.
Career, Business, and Investments
Linda Lavin's career highlighted her versatility as an actress, singer, director, and producer. She appeared in more than 15 Broadway productions and numerous films and television shows, including "Alice," "The Muppets Take Manhattan," and "The Intern". Lavin was also a successful producer and directed several episodes of "Alice" and a "CBS Schoolbreak Special" episode. In addition to her acting career, she made significant real estate investments, purchasing two Manhattan apartments with her husband Steve Bakunas.
Lavin began her career with Broadway appearances in the musical A Family Affair (1962) and plays such as The Riot Act (1963) and Carl Reiner's Something Different (1967). In his New York Times review of John Guare's two one-act plays, Cop-Out (1969), Clive Barnes wrote: "Miss Lavin...carries versatility almost to the point of paranoia, and camps up a storm."
Social Network
While Linda Lavin's personal social media presence might not have been extensive, her legacy and work continue to be celebrated by fans across various platforms.
She "arrived at showbiz stardom with a featured role" in the musical It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman (1966). She received her first Tony Award nomination in 1970, for her role in the Neil Simon play Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1969). Clive Barnes, in his review for The New York Times, wrote: "Linda Lavin, eyebrows, [sic] flaunting like telegraphed messages, mouth twitching and pouting, voice as dry as thunder and with a cough like electric static, is beautiful as Elaine, the sex cat feeling coolly kittenish and looking for a safe tin roof." Lavin's last Broadway credit before she moved to Hollywood was in Paul Sills' Story Theatre in 1971.
Lavin appeared in the Nicky Silver play Too Much Sun, which opened Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre on May 18, 2014. Ben Brantley, in his review for The New York Times wrote: "And it's an unconditional treat to witness an actress like Ms. Lavin tuned so precisely into the writer's wavelength that script and performance become a marriage of true minds."
She also appeared in many other telefilms between 1967 and 1998, including: Sadbird, The Morning After, Jerry, Like Mom, Like Me, The $5.20 an Hour Dream, Another Woman's Child, Maricela, Lena: My 100 Children, Whitewash, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story, Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden, For the Future: The Irvine Fertility Scandal, The Ring, and Best Friends for Life. Lavin produced and starred in A Matter of Life and Death, the 1981 telefilm based on the work of nurse thanatologist Joy Ufema. She directed the 1990 telefilm Flour Babies.
While residing in Wilmington, North Carolina, Lavin worked as a stage director. One of her directorial credits was a 1998 production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It, updated to a Brazilian jazz style. In both Wilmington and New York City, she taught master classes in acting and singing.
Education
Details about Linda Lavin's educational background are not widely available, but her early interest and dedication to performing arts led her to pursue a successful career in the entertainment industry.
In the summer of 1958, she played one of the leads in The Common Glory, an outdoor drama written by Paul Green and staged at an amphitheater on campus. Upon her graduation from college, she had already received her Actors' Equity Association card. She was a member of the Compass Players in the late 1950s.
In 2010, Lavin appeared as Ruth Steiner in a Broadway revival of the play Collected Stories opposite Sarah Paulson as her student, reprising her role for a PBS production of the play, and received a fifth Tony nomination for the role. She appeared in the new play by Jon Robin Baitz, Other Desert Cities, Off-Broadway at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater (now the Vivian Beaumont Theater) at Lincoln Center, beginning in previews in December 2010, closing February 27, 2011. Lavin was featured in the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) production of the musical Follies, from May 2011 to June 2011, as Hattie Walker.
Lavin was married three times. Her first marriage to actor Ron Leibman ended in divorce in 1981. Her second marriage, to actor Kip Niven, whom she met on the set of Alice, ended in a bitter divorce in 1992. While Lavin had no biological children, she was a stepmother during her second and third marriages. She married Steve Bakunas in 2005. The couple resided in Wilmington, North Carolina, where they were committed community members who were working together to rehabilitate impoverished neighborhoods including renovating many homes, donating a park to the city and creating a community theater, the Red Barn Studio. In 1997, Lavin founded The Linda Lavin Arts Foundation in Wilmington, "to promote and foster the advancement of the performing and visual arts, with special emphasis on arts in education. Her foundation has created a theater program called Girl Friends, whose purpose is to raise the self-esteem of at-risk teenage girls of the inner city."
