Linda Lavin, Beloved Tony Winner and Alice Star, Dies at 87

Tony Award winner Linda Lavin died Sunday, December 29, at the age of 87. According to published reports, Lavin had been recently diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away “unexpectedly” due to complications from the disease.

A regular on and off-Broadway, Lavin’s final stage appearance came in 2022 in the play You Will Get Sick, wearing the blue and white gingham of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Over the last decade, she had performed in a plethora of productions, including Nicky Silver’s The Lyons and Too Much Sun; Richard Greenberg’s Our Mother’s Brief Affair; the off-Broadway run of Other Desert Cities; and the Kennedy Center pre-New York run of Follies, where she belted “Broadway Baby.”

Lavin won a Tony for her mesmerizing performance in Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound, and received Tony nominations for productions including The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The Diary of Anne Frank, and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. She played Rose in Gypsy on Broadway and memorably originated the song “You’ve Got Possibilities” in It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman and “The Boy From…” in The Mad Show.

On television, Lavin was best known for playing the title role in the sitcom Alice, also singing the show’s theme song, “There’s a New Girl in Town” each season. Memorably, she played Detective Janice Wentworth on Barney Miller, Sean Hayes’s mother in Sean Saves the World, and Norma in B Positive. She’s been on The Good Wife, Mom, Elsbeth, The Sopranos, and countless others. At the time of her death, Lavin was a regular on the upcoming Hulu sitcom Mid-Century Modern, opposite Nathan Lane, Nathan Lee Graham, and Matt Bomer. The show is currently shooting its first season in Los Angeles.

Married thrice, Lavin is survived by her husband Steve Bakunas, whom she married in 2005.