| Linda Lavin | |
|---|---|
Lavin and husband at Kennedy Center, June 19, 2011 |
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| Born | October 15, 1937 Portland, Maine, United States |
| Alma mater | College of William and Mary |
| Occupation | Actress/Singer |
| Years active | 1967–present |
| Spouse | Ron Leibman (1969-1981) Kip Niven (1982-1991) Steve Bakunas (2005-present) |
Linda Lavin (born October 15, 1937) is an American singer and actress. She is best known for playing the title character in the sitcom Alice and for her Broadway performances.
After acting as a child, Lavin joined the Compass Players in the late 1950s. She began acting on Broadway in the 1960s, earning notice by 1966 in It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman 1966 and receiving her first Tony Award nomination in Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1970. She moved to Hollywood in 1973 and began to work in television, making recurring appearances on Barney Miller before getting the title role in Alice, which ran from 1976 to 1985. She appeared in many telefilms and later in other TV work. She has also had roles in several feature films.
In 1987, she returned to Broadway, starring in Broadway Bound (winning a Tony Award), Gypsy (1990), The Sisters Rosensweig (1993), The Diary of Anne Frank (1997–1998) and The Tale of the Allergist's Wife (2000–2001), among others. In 2010, she appeared as Ruth Steiner in Collected Stories, garnering her fifth Tony nomination. Thrice married, Lavin spends time at her North Carolina home on charitable activities.
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Lavin was born in Portland, Maine, the daughter of Lucille (née Potter), an opera singer, and David J. Lavin, a businessman.[1] Her family was musically talented, and Lavin has been onstage since the age of five. Upon her graduation from the College of William and Mary,[2] she had already received her Actors' Equity Association card. She was a member of the Compass Players in the late 1950s.[3] By the early 1960s, Lavin had appeared in several Broadway shows and appeared on the 1966 cast recordings of The Mad Show performing Stephen Sondheim's "The Boy From...". From It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, one of her numbers, "You've Got Possibilities," was the album's best-received song and was called "The one memorable song...flirty, syncopated" by the Dallas Observer.[4]
In 1967, Lavin made an appearance as Gloria Thorpe in a television version of the musical Damn Yankees with Phil Silvers.[5] In 1969, Lavin married actor Ron Leibman,[6] and by 1973 the couple had arrived in Hollywood, California. After various guest appearances on episodic television series such as The Nurses, Rhoda, Harry O and Kaz, Lavin landed a recurring role on Barney Miller during the first and second seasons (1975–1976).[7]
She left Barney Miller to star in the lead role in Alice. The show was a popular hit for CBS and ran from 1976 to 1985. The series was based on the Martin Scorsese-directed Ellen Burstyn film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.[8] Lavin portrayed Alice Hyatt, a waitress and 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 [9] and was updated for each of the first six seasons. During the series' nine-season run, Lavin earned two Golden Globe awards and an Emmy nomination,[10] 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.[11] Lavin also made numerous television appearances outside of Alice, including hosting her own holiday special, Linda in Wonderland. She acted in two sitcoms, 1992's Room for Two [11] and 1998's Conrad Bloom.[12] She made numerous television guest appearances, including roles on The Muppet Show, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The O.C., Touched by an Angel and HBO's The Sopranos.
She also appeared in many telefilms between 1967 and 1998, including: Damn Yankees!, Sadbird, The Morning After, Jerry, Like Mom, Like Me, The $5.20 an Hour Dream, A Matter of Life and Death, 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.[6][11][13] She directed the 1990 telefilm Flour Babies.[14]
Lavin made her feature film debut in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984).[15] Her other feature film appearances include See You in the Morning, starring Jeff Bridges,[16] Alain Resnais's I Want to Go Home, opposite Gerard Depardieu (both 1989),[17] and The Back-Up Plan (2010).[18]
Lavin began her career with Broadway appearances in the musicals A Family Affair (1962) and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1966), and plays such as The Riot Act (1963), Something Different (1967) and Cop Out (1969). She "arrived at showbiz stardom with a featured role" in the musical It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman (1966).[19][20] Her first Tony Award nomination was for her role in the Neil Simon play, Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1970.[21] Lavin's last Broadway credit before she moved to Hollywood was in Paul Sills' Story Theatre in 1971. In her early years, Lavin also appeared in numerous Off-Broadway productions, including Wet Paint (1965), the musical The Mad Show (1966)[22] and Little Murders (1969). Lavin won the Theatre World Award for Wet Paint[23] and a Drama Desk Award for Little Murders.[24][25]
After more than a decade away, during which she appeared on television, Lavin returned to the Broadway stage in 1987, winning a Tony Award and her second Drama Desk Award for her role as Kate in Simon's play Broadway Bound.[26] Frank Rich, in his New York Times review, 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."[27] She then starred on Broadway in Gypsy as Mama Rose Hovick (1990).[28] 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 particular portrayal of the character.[29]
Subsequent Broadway roles included Gorgeous Teitelbaum in The Sisters Rosensweig (1993) and Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank (1997–1998), opposite Natalie Portman, for which she garnered another Tony nomination as Featured Actress in a Play.[30] 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 the Tony Award, Actress in a Play[31] and Drama Desk Award, and the nanny in Hollywood Arms. Off-Broadway, she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her performance in Death-Defying Acts, a play for which she also won a Best Actress Obie Award and the Lucille Lortel Award.
In 2010, Lavin appeared as Ruth Steiner in a Broadway revival of the play Collected Stories,[32] reprising her role for a PBS production of the work,[33] 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 (Lincoln Center) beginning in previews in December 2010, closing February 27, 2011.[34] Lavin appeared in the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) production of the musical Follies, from May 2011 to June 2011, as Hattie Walker.[35] She is currently starring in the premiere of the Nicky Silver play The Lyons at the Off-Broadway Vineyard Theatre, which opened on October 11, 2011 and is running through October 30.[36]
Lavin performed a cabaret act at Birdland in August 2005, with one reviewer noting, "Her nightclub act is a rewarding, sometimes revealing, and thoroughly entertaining visit."[37] She performed her act at the Plush Room, San Francisco, with Billy Stritch and her husband Steve Bakunas in September 2005.[38] She performed at Feinstein's at the Regency, New York in March 2006.[39] Her latest CD, Possibilities, was released in November 2011. She is giving a concert to celebrate the CD at Birdland in December 2011.[40]
Lavin has been married three times. Her first marriage to Ron Leibman ended in divorce in 1980. Her second marriage to Kip Niven, who played Steve Marsh, the boyfriend of Vera Louise Gorman-Novak on Alice, ended in divorce in 1992.[41] While Lavin has no biological children, she is the stepmother to Niven's children Jim and Kate Niven and the grandmother to Jim's sons Grayson and Talen.[2]
Lavin married actor, artist and musician Steve Bakunas in 2005.[42] The couple resides in Wilmington, North Carolina[35] where they are committed community members 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.[43] 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 theatre program called Girl Friends, whose purpose is to raise the self-esteem of at-risk teenage girls of the inner city."[18]
In Wilmington, she directs for the stage. Innovations as a director included a 1998 production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It performed in a Brazilian jazz style.[18] In both Wilmington and New York she teaches master classes in acting and singing.[18]
Lavin was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame for 2010 in January 2011.[44]
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