Bunny Levine, who left a 25-year career as a school librarian to become a working actor and landed roles in “Gilmore Girls,” “La La Land” and several Adam Sandler comedies, died at age 97 on August 20, 2026, at her home in Tarzana, California.
Officers with the Los Angeles Police Department went to the home on the morning of August 20 on a report of an unresponsive person, and the department said the death appeared natural. She died peacefully in her sleep, according to her manager, Brandon Kjar, who confirmed the death to CBS News on Sunday, August 23.
“She was a great and fearless actress and such a nice lady,” Kjar told The Hollywood Reporter. Her agent, Mike Eisenstadt, sent CBS News the same line in an emailed statement, adding: “What a full life. She will be missed.” Kjar said Levine was still going out for roles at 97, and that her last job came in June.
A Librarian’s Long Detour
Born Bernice Utal on December 22, 1928, in East Orange, New Jersey, she knew almost from the start that she wanted to perform. She studied dramatic arts at Washington State College and acted in student productions there before graduating in 1951 — and then set the ambition aside. “In college, it began to dawn on me that I wasn’t a good leading lady,” she told Washington State Magazine in 2013. “There were other women who were just as good as me, but tall. And beautiful.” For some 25 years she worked as a school librarian and teacher in Teaneck, New Jersey, raising three children and earning master’s degrees from New York University and Columbia University.
Early retirement in 1985 pointed her in a new direction rather than slowing her down. She went back to community theater, then began auditioning professionally, and in 1988, at 59, took a billed role as Ruby in the horror comedy “Slime City” and a part on “The Dr. Ruth Show.” More than a dozen credits followed over the next 15 years, among them the 1990 Robin Williams comedy “Cadillac Man” and a 1999 episode of “Law & Order.” When her husband, Bernard “Bernie” Levine, died in 2003, she moved to Los Angeles full time.
Both halves of that life left a mark on people, her family said in a statement — the decades in schools and the decades on camera.
The Actors Connection Years
Hollywood came second; New York came first. In 1991, Levine and Bernie — married since 1949, and married 53 years by the time he died — launched the Actors Connection in New York City, an organization built to guide performers through the industry and put them in front of the people doing the hiring. According to her family, the couple helped a great many actors move their careers ahead.
“Her passion for helping actors has launched countless careers,” the group said in a statement following her death, thanking Levine for creating a community for the artists she loved.
A Career Built on Guest Spots
Read straight through, her television résumé plays like 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,” “Dave,” “Community” — as Pierce’s mother — and “Jury Duty.”
Her film work stretched from “Slime City” and “The Jimmy Show” to “A Thousand Words” and an uncredited turn as a movie theater cashier in “La La Land.” She turned up in 2008 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,” which Sandler produced and appeared in alongside his daughters.
The jobs kept coming deep into her 90s. Among her more recent credits are “The Invisible Raptor” in 2023 and “Sacramento,” directed by and starring actor Michael Angarano, which premiered at Tribeca in 2024 and opened in theaters in April 2025 with Michael Cera, Kristen Stewart and Maya Erskine; and the 2024 comedy “Thelma,” led by veteran actress June Squibb. Levine showed up for the Los Angeles premiere of “Thelma” at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on June 14, 2024.
Audiences saw her again in 2026, in the final season of “The Upshaws” and in “The Cure.”
Survivors and Services
Survivors include her three children — Marty, Francie and Joe — and two grandchildren, Robin and Jeffrey.
Services were held at 1 p.m. on Thursday, August 27, at the Jewish Memorial Chapel in Clifton, New Jersey. Donations in her memory may go to the Entertainment Community Fund.
Hers is the familiar Hollywood story run in reverse. The usual version has actors showing up young, hungry and unattached, then fading out once the auditions stop. Levine came late, after a full career and a full house, and stayed. She spent 25 years shelving other people’s stories before she began telling her own — and at 97 she was still auditioning. “I feel very blessed to have been able to get back to what I had always wanted since early memory,” she told a Washington State University student newspaper in March. “I wish that everyone could find that happiness.”