Bunny Levine, who left a 25-year career as a school librarian to become a working actor and went on to turn up in “Gilmore Girls,” “La La Land” and several Adam Sandler comedies, died at her home in Tarzana, Calif., on August 20, 2026. She was 97.
Her manager, Brandon Kjar, confirmed the death on August 23 to CBS News, saying she slipped away peacefully in her sleep. Officers with the Los Angeles Police Department had gone to the home that morning on a report of an unresponsive person, and the department said the death appeared natural.
“She was a great and fearless actress and such a nice lady. What a full life. She will be missed,” her agent, Mike Eisenstadt, said in a statement.
“Bunny inspired affection and admiration in many people with her work in education and performance,” her family said in its own statement. At 97, Kjar said, Levine was still auditioning, and she last worked in June.
A Librarian’s Long Detour
She was born Bernice on December 22, 1928, in Orange, N.J., and the pull toward performing came almost immediately. It also waited a long time. For 25 years she set the ambition aside, working as a school librarian and educator in Teaneck, N.J., and raising three children while collecting master’s degrees from New York University and Columbia University.
Washington State Magazine caught up with her in 2013 for a piece on second acts. “The real me is sort of tough,” she told it.
Retirement redirected her rather than slowing her down. She enrolled in acting classes and began auditioning, chasing the career she had postponed for a quarter-century. After her husband, Bernard “Bernie” Levine, died in 2003, following 53 years of marriage, she moved to Los Angeles — not to begin the career, which was already 15 years old by then, but to chase the bigger part of it.
The Actors Connection Years
Hollywood came second; New York came first. Levine and her husband started the Actors Connection in New York City in 1991, an organization built to steer performers through the industry and put them in front of the people doing the hiring. Her family said the couple helped a great many actors move their careers ahead there.
“Her passion for helping actors has launched countless careers,” the group said in a statement following her death, thanking Levine for building a community for the artists she loved.
A Career Built on Guest Spots
Run down her television work and you have something close to a survey course in the past 30 years of American TV: “Law & Order,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Ugly Betty,” “Private Practice,” “Criminal Minds,” “2 Broke Girls,” “Raising Hope,” “Southland,” “New Girl,” “Getting On,” “The Mindy Project,” “Fuller House,” “Shameless,” and “Dave.” Her credits also included the sitcom “Community” and the reality-comedy series “Jury Duty.”
The Ray Romano sitcom was an early breakthrough, and it set the mold: she played a friend of Ray’s mother-in-law, Marie, delivering flirty asides in his direction. She was clear-eyed about the pattern it started. “In real life, I’m not a funny person, but at least three-quarters of the roles I’ve gotten have been comedic,” she told Mel magazine in 2021.
Her screen career, in fact, started earlier than the retirement story suggests. She was 59 when her first screen credit arrived, in the 1988 horror-comedy “Slime City,” following it with the 1990 film “Cadillac Man” and continuing to work through the 1990s.
Other film credits stretched from “The Jimmy Show” to “A Thousand Words” and “La La Land,” in which her appearance was uncredited. In 2008, she turned up in “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan,” the comedy starring actor and comedian Adam Sandler. The two worked together again on “Sandy Wexler” in 2017 and on the 2023 Netflix film “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.”
Deep into her 90s, she kept taking jobs. “The Invisible Raptor” came in 2023, followed by two 2024 releases: “Sacramento,” directed by actor and filmmaker Michael Angarano and starring Kristen Stewart and Michael Cera, and “Thelma,” the comedy led by veteran actress June Squibb. On June 14, 2024, Levine showed up for the Los Angeles premiere of “Thelma” at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
Audiences saw her again in 2026, in the final season of “The Upshaws” and in “The Cure.”
Survivors and Services
Levine is survived by three children — Marty, Francie and Joe — and by two grandchildren, Robin and Jeffrey.
Services were held at 1 p.m. Thursday, August 27, at the Jewish Memorial Chapel in Clifton, N.J. Contributions honoring her may be directed to the Entertainment Community Fund.
Hers is the familiar Hollywood arc, run in reverse. The usual version has actors showing up young, hungry and unattached, then fading out once the auditions stop coming. Levine showed up late, with a full career and a full house behind her, and stayed. For 25 years she shelved other people’s stories; then she started telling her own, and she was still auditioning at 97.
