Linda Lavin’s final role on television will be in “Mid-Century Modern” this Friday, so her co-stars and the sitcom creators made sure to honor the late star at their Hulu premiere on Tuesday.
“Linda Lavin was the most joyous, gracious, amazing person that you’d ever want to meet. She worked from the age of 5 to 87 and went out blazing like the star she was,” Nathan Lee Graham told TheWrap. “She truly was a pro at everything. This woman did everything: she could play the piano; she could sing; she could act, comedy, drama equally as well. She was a light. I call her the spiritual showrunner of our show. She’s the glue, she keeps us going. She’s the puppetmaster, she’s doing all of this tonight. So, she’s here.”
The Tony Award winner and Emmy-nominated actress died in December at age 87 from complications of lung cancer before Season 1 had wrapped. Lavin filmed seven episodes with enough extra material to make an eighth, and the death of her character Sybil will be addressed on the show.
“We knew each other since we both came from the theater. I was just a huge fan, I had seen her in ‘Broadway Bound,’ for which she won the Tony. We met over the years and every time I would see her, we would say, ‘I really hope we get to work together someday,’” Nathan Lane shared in a post-screening Q&A. “So this was very meaningful and emotional that she ended up playing my mother. It was everything I could have hoped for.”
“She was in a great place in her life. She was happily married, her husband Steve is here tonight,” he continued. “She was just so loving and kind and gracious. I was so happy that we all got to have that time with her and that she went out doing something that she loved doing — and at the top of her game.”
“When I was broke in New York, I went to see ‘The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife’ twice on Broadway, that’s what a fan I was of Linda Lavin coming into this and growing up on ‘Alice’ reruns, so it was pretty surreal,” Matt Bomer echoed. “She’s someone who just led by example. She was a genius in this medium, but also so humble and generous in her spirit with her fellow actors. She made you forget the legacy that you associate with her walking into a room.”
“When we broke before the holiday, we had the most beautiful conversation I could ever have hoped for. We got to say everything that we wanted to say to each other and both ended by saying, ‘I love you,’” he shared. “I’m so grateful that was the last conversation we had because I got to tell her all things I was holding in all season.”
Before the premiere, series co-creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick introduced the multi-cam comedy (directed by the legendary James Burrows, who was also in attendance) by recounting some of the challenges they faced making the show.
“The period from July when we started to today was perhaps the most difficult and saddest and also, in some ways, the most rewarding of our careers,” Kohan told the crowd, as Mutchnick continued, “L.A. burned, we lost our beloved Linda. The pain we experienced in this first season was profound and unlike anything we had to deal with before. But it galvanized us. It brought everybody involved in the production closer together.”
Other notable event attendees included Caroline Rhea, Kim Coles, Richard Kind, William Stanford Davis, Liv Hewson, Max Greenfield, Cheyenne Jackson, Andrew Rannells, Tuc Watkins, Jaymes Mansfield, Charlie Carver, Daniel Franzese, Garrett Clayton, Kate Flannery, Jaime Moyer, Marsha Thomason, Esther Moon, Caitlin Stasey, Cheri Oteri, Renan Pacheco and Billie Lourd.
The premiere at the Directors Guild of America complex included a mid-century modern-styled red carpet, a two-episode screening and an afterparty on the Pendry rooftop, complete with passed apps, open bars, Polaroid photos and synchronized pool boy swimmers straight out of Palm Springs.
All 10 episodes of “Mid-Century Modern” Season 1 drop Friday on Hulu.
