Lainie Kazan

Lainie Kazan, born Lainie Levine on May 15, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York, is an American actress, singer, and classical composer. Her mother, Carole, was born into the Kazan family, and her father was Ben Levine. Kazan is of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewish descent, with Russian and Turkish roots, and some of her grandparents lived in Jerusalem before relocating to Manchester, England, and eventually settling in Brooklyn. She attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, graduating in 1956, and later studied theatre at HB Studio. She earned a degree from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, in 1960. During her time at Hofstra, Kazan performed in school musicals written and directed by classmate Francis Ford Coppola, alongside fellow student James Caan.

Kazan made her Broadway debut in 1961 with The Happiest Girl in the World, followed the next year by Bravo Giovanni. She joined the cast of Funny Girl in 1964, serving as understudy to Barbra Streisand — a former classmate from Erasmus Hall High School — in the lead role of Fanny Brice. When Streisand was unable to perform due to a throat condition, Kazan stepped into the role for both a matinee and an evening performance on a single day of the production's run. She later returned to Broadway in the play The Inspector General and, in 1993, reprised her film role in the musical adaptation of My Favorite Year, a performance that earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Her Broadway career thus spanned from 1961 to 1994.

Beyond Broadway, Kazan built an extensive career in regional theatre, appearing in productions of A Little Night Music, Man of La Mancha, Gypsy, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hello, Dolly!, and Fiddler on the Roof. She is a life member of The Actors Studio and also completed a stint in The Vagina Monologues.

Kazan's television work has been wide-ranging. She guest-starred on Dean Martin's variety series 26 times and took on a recurring role as Aunt Frieda on the Fran Drescher sitcom The Nanny. She played the mother of Kirstie Alley's character on Veronica's Closet and appeared as singer Ava St. Clair in two episodes of The King of Queens alongside Kevin James. A guest role on St. Elsewhere resulted in a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Additional television credits include The Paper Chase, Columbo, Touched by an Angel, Will & Grace, and a 1984 appearance on the Faerie Tale Theatre episode "Pinocchio" as Sophia the Blue Fairy. In 2010, she joined the cast of Desperate Housewives for its seventh season, playing Mrs. Maxine Rosen, a self-employed business owner and neighbor to Susan Delfino. She also appeared in the Ugly Betty episode "Fire and Nice" as Dina Talercio, the mother of Bobby, who becomes a character's brother-in-law.

Her film work includes the role of Maria Portokalos, the mother of Toula Portokalos, in the My Big Fat Greek Wedding franchise. Following the first film, she appeared in the short-lived television series My Big Fat Greek Life, based on the same franchise. She also played the mother of Adam Sandler's character in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, though her scene was cut from the theatrical release and included only in the DVD's special features. The film My Favorite Year, for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination, preceded her Tony-nominated stage reprisal of the same role.

In October 1970, Kazan posed for Playboy, with the photographs later reused in Pocket Playboy No. 4 in 1974. The Playboy appearance led to her headlining and operating two Playboy Jazz Clubs overseen by Hugh Hefner — Lainie's Room West in Los Angeles and Lainie's Room East in Manhattan. Her Playboy photographs also inspired the visual design of Jack Kirby's superheroine Big Barda. Kazan performed in supper clubs across the country throughout this period.

In her personal life, Kazan met musical director and arranger Peter H. B. Daniels while both were working on Funny Girl, where he served as associate orchestra conductor. The two entered a relationship that lasted five years, and they married sometime after the 1971 birth of their daughter Jennifer. The marriage ended by 1976, and Daniels died in 1989. During the 1970s, Kazan was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis and subsequently dedicated time to public education about the condition. Beginning in 2012, she served as an adjunct professor at UCLA, teaching acting and directing students in drama-department productions. She has served on the boards of the Young Musicians Foundation, AIDS Project LA, B'nai B'rith, the California Jazz Foundation, and Hofstra University. On April 9, 2016, Kazan was injured in a head-on traffic collision in Sherman Oaks, California, requiring hospitalization. In December 2017, she was arrested for shoplifting outside a California supermarket, and prosecutors subsequently reached a plea deal with her. In a 2022 Vanity Fair interview, Kazan alleged incidents of sexual harassment by the late comedian Jerry Lewis.