Early years 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.
Theater In 1960 Lavin appeared at the
East 74th Street Theater in
George Gershwin's
Oh, Kay!, with
Penny Fuller and
Marti Stevens. 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." Lavin also appeared in numerous
Off-Broadway productions, including the revue
Wet Paint (1965), the musical
The Mad Show (1966) (in which she introduced the cabaret standard "
The Boy From...", written by
Stephen Sondheim and
Mary Rodgers), and
Little Murders (1969). Lavin won the
Theatre World Award for
Wet Paint and a
Drama Desk Award for
Little Murders. In 1975, she appeared in the
Shakespeare in the Park production of
The Comedy of Errors at the
Delacorte Theater. 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. 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. Her subsequent Broadway roles included
The Sisters Rosensweig, as a replacement Gorgeous Teitelbaum starting in September 1993 and Mrs. Van Daan in
The Diary of Anne Frank (1997–1998), opposite
Natalie Portman, for which she garnered a Tony nomination as Featured Actress in a Play. In 1995 she appeared in the Off-Broadway
Death-Defying Acts, which consists of three one-act plays; Lavin performed in the
Elaine May (
Hotline) and
Woody Allen plays (
Central Park West). She was nominated for a Drama Desk Award (Outstanding Actress – Play) and won an
Obie Award (Performance) and the
Lucille Lortel Award. She also directed theater during this period. 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. 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. She appeared in the premiere of the
Nicky Silver play
The Lyons at the Off-Broadway
Vineyard Theatre, beginning in September 2011, through November 11.
Ben Brantley,
The New York Times reviewer, commented: "Watching Ms. Lavin, I found myself thinking of Nora from Ibsen's ''
Doll's House'' – well, a pursed-lipped, lemony-sour, older Nora in pseudo-Chanel, one who's never at a loss for what to say and when to say it. Rita may be a little behind schedule in discovering herself, but no one can fault the hair-trigger timing of the actress playing her or the surprising dimensions she finds within one-liners." She reprised her role in the Broadway production, which opened at the
Cort Theatre on April 23, 2012, and closed on July 1, 2012. 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." 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''. In January 2017, Lavin appeared in
New York City Opera's production of Leonard Bernstein's
Candide at the Rose Theatre at
Lincoln Center in the role of The Old Lady. In 2020, Lavin performed "The Boy From..." as part of
Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration. Writing in
The New York Times, critic
Ben Brantley called her performance of the song "deliciously undersold," and noted that she had introduced it 54 years earlier.
Cabaret and recording She 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. 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. Her recording
Possibilities was released by Ghostlight Records in 2012. Steven Suskin wrote: "There is still that sweet, friendly sound of long ago (and 'sweet' and 'friendly' are not words you'd use to describe Lavin-the-actress)."
Television In 1967, Lavin made an appearance as Gloria Thorpe in a
television version of the baseball musical
Damn Yankees with
Phil Silvers. In 1969, Lavin married actor
Ron Leibman, and by 1973, the couple had moved to
Hollywood, California. After various guest appearances on episodic television series such as
The Nurses,
Rhoda,
Harry O, and
Kaz, Lavin landed a recurring role as Detective Janice Wentworth on
Barney Miller during the first and second seasons (1975–1976). as Vera, Linda Lavin as Alice, and
Polly Holliday as Flo on
Alice (1976) 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) 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. She made numerous television guest appearances, including roles on
The Muppet Show (1979),
Law & Order: Criminal Intent,
The O.C.,
Touched by an Angel (1999), and
HBO's
The Sopranos (2002). 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''. In 2015, she guest starred as a judge approached to stop an execution in the episode of
Bones titled "The Verdict in the Victims". Lavin in 2012 guest starred on 2 episodes of the CBS series "Mom", "Kreplach and a tiny tush" and Mahjong Sally & the Ecstasy" as Violet's Fiancée's Jewish Mother. Lavin played Judy Roberts in the
CBS sitcom
9JKL (2017–18) alongside
Mark Feuerstein and
Elliott Gould. In 2019, Lavin joined the cast of the
Netflix comedy/horror
Santa Clarita Diet, starring
Drew Barrymore and
Timothy Olyphant. In 2020, Lavin performed the song "
The Boy From..." from
The Mad Show in
Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration. Lavin appeared in the CBS comedy
B Positive, which aired from 2020 to 2022, in a recurring role as Norma, one of the senior citizens at a local retirement home. 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,
Nathan Lee Graham 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."
Directing and teaching 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. Her other feature film appearances include
See You in the Morning, starring
Jeff Bridges;
Alain Resnais's
I Want to Go Home, opposite
Gérard Depardieu (both 1989); and
The Back-up Plan (2010). ==Personal life==