At 97, Bunny Levine was still reading for parts. Her manager, Brandon Kjar, said the actress had booked her most recent job in June — a working schedule she kept up until she died at her Tarzana, California, home on August 20, 2026.
Kjar confirmed the death on Sunday, August 23, saying she died peacefully in her sleep. Officers from the Los Angeles Police Department went to the residence that morning on a call about an unresponsive person and later concluded that she had died of natural causes.
“She was a great and fearless actress and such a nice lady,” Kjar said.
Her agent, Mike Eisenstadt, used that identical sentence in an emailed statement to CBS News, then added: “What a full life. She will be missed.”
Levine’s television resume reads like a tour through 30 years of American TV. She turned up on “Southland,” “New Girl” and “Raising Hope,” on “Criminal Minds” and “Law & Order,” on comedies including “2 Broke Girls,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “The Mindy Project,” “Getting On,” “Fuller House” and “Dave,” and on dramas such as “Gilmore Girls,” “Ugly Betty,” “Private Practice” and “Shameless.”
On the film side, her range ran as wide as “Slime City,” “The Jimmy Show,” “A Thousand Words” and “La La Land.” She landed in the orbit of actor and comedian Adam Sandler more than once, first with 2008’s “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan,” later in “Sandy Wexler” in 2017 and again in the 2023 Netflix release “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.”
The roles kept coming well into her 90s. She was in “The Invisible Raptor” in 2023 and in a pair of 2024 films: “Sacramento,” directed by actor and filmmaker Michael Angarano with Kristen Stewart and Michael Cera in the cast, and “Thelma,” a comedy fronted by veteran actress June Squibb. Levine attended the “Thelma” premiere in Los Angeles at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on June 14, 2024. This year brought two more appearances: the closing season of “The Upshaws” and “The Cure.”
She arrived on December 22, 1928, in East Orange, New Jersey, named Bernice Utal at birth, and wanted to act from an early age. That wish went on the shelf for a quarter-century after high school. During those 25 years she worked as a school librarian, raised three kids and earned master’s degrees at New York University and Columbia University.
Leaving that job didn’t mean slowing down — it meant starting over. She enrolled in acting classes and began auditioning. After the death of her husband, Bernard “Bernie” Levine, in 2003, she moved to Los Angeles and pursued the work in earnest.
Her family said she left a mark on the people she met in both chapters — the years inside schools and the years in front of a camera.
Before the West Coast came New York. In 1991, Levine and her husband of 53 years founded the Actors Connection in New York City, a venture built to help performers navigate the business and meet the people who do the casting. Her family said the pair advanced a great many acting careers through it.
“Her passion for helping actors has launched countless careers,” the organization said in a statement after she died, thanking her for building a community for the artists she loved.
Levine is survived by her three children, Marty, Francie and Joe, and by two grandchildren, Robin and Jeffrey.
Mourners will gather Thursday, August 27, at 1 p.m., with the service to be held at Clifton, New Jersey’s Jewish Memorial Chapel. The family has suggested donations in her memory go to the Entertainment Community Fund.
Hers was the show business arc run in reverse. The usual version has performers showing up young and unattached, then fading out once the calls stop. Levine came to it late, with a full career and a grown family already behind her, and stayed. She spent 25 years putting other people’s stories on shelves before telling any of her own.
