La La Land and Gilmore Girls star Bunny Levine dies aged 97

Law & Order and Gilmore Girls star Bunny Levine has died aged 97.

A representative for the actress, Mike Eisenstadt, confirmed to NBC Los Angeles that the actress died at her home in Tarzana, California.

According to the publication, the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a report about an unresponsive person at Levine’s residence.

Police confirmed that her death ‘appeared to be from natural causes.’ 

Levine had worked as a school librarian for over 20 years and embarked on her acting career at the age of 60.

Her first acting credit was in 1988 horror comedy Slime City. 

She was then cast in the 1990 movie Cadillac Man and appeared in episodes of As The World Turns and Law & Order in the late 90s.  

Her acting career continued into the 2000s after appearing in an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond in 2004. 

‘That was the first bigger thing I did in Los Angeles,’ she told Mel Magazine of her role in the sitcom. 

‘In that, I was a friend of Raymond’s mother, and me and a couple of other older women kept dropping things to admire Ray Romano’s rear end. 

‘I never really thought that much about it, but I guess, in retrospect, after that I kept getting a lot of those roles,’ Levine said.

Discussing her unlikely start in Hollywood, Levine said: ‘Acting is always what I wanted to do, but it wasn’t practical.

‘I don’t know if you’ve seen a picture of me, but I wasn’t a good young leading lady.’

She added: ‘I’m short and a little character-y. I wasn’t ugly, but I wasn’t beautiful either, so acting just wasn’t practical.’ 

She went on to portray the character of Mrs. Thompson on the hit series Gilmore Girls. 

She appeared in three Adam Sandler movies including You Don’t Mess with the Zohan and You Are So Not Invited to my Bat Mitzvah.

Levine also appeared in such films as Cadillac Man, A Thousand Words, and Oscar-winning La La Land.

More recently she appeared in reality hoax sitcom Jury Duty and comedy drama film Thelma.

The actress’ last film role was in the 2026 indie David Dastmalchian horror thriller The Cure.