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TV and Broadway legend Linda Lavin has died unexpectedly at 87 – was working until recent weeks


Television and Broadway legend Linda Lavin died today at age 87. This is incredibly sad and feels somewhat shocking because I just saw her a month ago on the Disney lot at a taping of the new Hulu series Mid-Century Modern.

My friend and me were remarking during the taping how she looked to be in such great form and was so funny opposite Nathan Lane who plays her so on the show which has not yet premiered.

News reports state that the Tony winner for Broadway Bound and the star of TV’s long-running sitcom Alice died unexpectedly from complications from recently diagnosed lung cancer.

I grew up watching her on Alice and she returned to series television in 2014 to play Sean Hayes’ mother on NBC’s Sean Saves the World! She created a delicious, opinionated and glorious character on that short-lived sitcom and clearly was having a great time – and so were we.

Around the time NBC canceled the Hayes series, I attended Miss Lavin’s show Portrait of an Artist at the Atwater Village Theatre. In this intimate setting, actress Miss Lavin shared in detail, the story of her life and career, as husband Steve Bakunas conducted the interview. He did this while at the same time painting her portrait which was then auctioned off. Hayes was in the audience that night as was Megan Hilty who was also in Sean Saves the World!

Miss Lavin opened up about her early years as a cabaret singer, chorus girl and TV guest star to Broadway and a television icon. While we know about her nine seasons as Alice, her decades on Broadway were fascinating to hear about.

There was her Tony Award winning performance in Broadway Bound, her run as Mama Rose in Gypsy and roles in such big hits as The Diary of Anne Frank (Tony nomination), The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (Tony nomination), Last of the Red Hot Lovers (Tony nomination), The Sisters Rosensweig, Hollywood Arms, Collected Stories (Tony nomination), and The Lyons (Tony nomination). She returned to Broadway in 2016 in the play Our Mother’s Brief Affair.

Her last public appearance was on Dec. 4 at the premiere of the Netflix series No Good Deed in which she has a recurring role.

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