Beloved actress Bunny Levine has died at age 97.
The former librarian who built a second career in Hollywood through roles in major TV shows and movies died in her sleep on Thursday at her home in Tarazana, California.
Beloved actress Bunny Levine has died at age 97. Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
NBC Los Angeles said police responded to her home after they received a report of an unresponsive person. Police believe her death was from natural causes.
Levine didn’t launch her career in the entertainment industry until the late 1980s, when she was almost 60 years old.
Before that, she had worked as a school librarian and teacher in Teaneck, New Jersey for about 25 years.
Some of her most notable roles include playing Mrs Thompson on Gilmore Girls, and her appearance on Everybody Loves Raymond, where she played a friend of Ray’s mother Marie.
Her other acting credits included Law & Order, Criminal Minds, 2 Broke Girls, Ugly Betty, Friends with Better Lives, Raising Hope, Shameless, Fuller House, New Girl, Private Practice and more, according to her IMDB.
But it wasn’t just the small screen for Levine.
She had a small role in the 2016 hit musical La La Land alongside Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
She also appeared in Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess With the Zohan in 2008, Sandy Wexler in 2017 and You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah in 2023.
Her final movie role was as Mrs Polanski in the 2026 movie The Cure.
A career in Hollywood came later in life for Levine. Pictured alongside the late James Van Der Beek in Friends with Better Lives. Photo by Robert Voets/CBS via Getty Images
Levine’s first professional acting credit came in 1988, when she landed a role in the horror-comedy Slime City at age 59.
She was born in December 1928, in East Orange, New Jersey, where she grew up and attended high school. She performed in school and local productions from an early age.
But when she graduated from university, she became a school librarian, moving back to New Jersey with her husband Bernard where they raised three kids together.
After Bernard died in 2003, she moved to Los Angeles where she started to book more commercials and acting jobs.
In 2025, she opened up about what drew her to acting, and revealed it was a career she dreamt of since being a child.
“I don’t know that many of us could explain why – it’s just something. Maybe it’s in the genes,” Levine told the Daily Evergreen.
“I don’t know if there was any ‘moment’. I just plugged along, and I would go study and try to get better at my crafts.
“I feel very blessed to have been able to get back to what I had always wanted since early memory. I wish that everyone could find that happiness.”