Bunny Levine died peacefully in her sleep Thursday August 20 at her home in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles.
She was 97. Her manager Brandon Kjar confirmed the death. "She was a great and fearless actress and such a nice lady," he said. "What a full life."
Levine was born in East Orange, New Jersey on December 22, 1928. She earned master's degrees from NYU and Columbia, spent 25 years as a school librarian raising three children and then, when she retired, did something most people only dream about.
She took acting classes and started auditioning. Her first professional screen credit came in 1988 when she was 59 years old. Her last came in 2026, the final season of The Upshaws and a film called The Cure. She was still auditioning and last worked in June. She was 97.
In between she appeared in more than 100 productions, Law & Order, Everybody Loves Raymond, Gilmore Girls, Ugly Betty, Shameless, La La Land, Thelma, a complete second career built across four decades in the industry she had always wanted to work in. In 1991 she and her husband Bernie founded the Actors Connection in New York City.
"Her passion for helping actors has launched countless careers," the organization said.
She did not wait to start living the life she wanted. She just started it a little later than most.