Entertainment
Appreciation: For 50 years, Linda Lavin was TV's go-to touch of class
When Linda Lavin appeared on the doorstep of Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano as a nosy neighbor in Netflix’s new real-estate comedy “No Good Deed,” my first thought was, “Linda Lavin looks great,” which quickly segued into the feeling that it was just good to see her again. (You never had to wait too long to see her again; she worked a lot.) It was a small but vital part, in which she seemed vital and anything but small.
So it was with some surprise that I learned the news that Lavin had died Sunday at age 87. Not that she seemed 87; there seemed to be no reason to think she couldn’t go on forever. Indeed, she had completed seven episodes of a new Hulu series, “Mid-Century Modern,” in which she plays the mother of Nathan Lane, who moves into her Palm Springs home with friends Matt Bomer and Nathan Lee Graham.
It was “Alice,” the 1976 CBS sitcom adaptation of Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” — the only situation comedy that will ever be made from a Scorsese film — that made Lavin a star. But she was already a cherished figure on the New York stage when she moved to Hollywood in 1973 with first husband, the actor Ron Leibman, with a Tony nomination for Neil Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers.” She’d appeared in plays by Carl Reiner, Jules Feiffer and John Guare and in Paul Sills’ “Story Theater.” (In the late ‘50s, she was a member of Sills’ improvisational Compass Players, which would give birth to Second City.) In “The Mad Show,” she introduced “The Boy From…,” a “Girl From Ipanema” parody co-written by Stephen Sondheim. New York Times critic Stanley Kauffmann called her performance in the 1966 “It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman” “pure imp”: “I wish she were in every musical and revue.”
In “Alice,” Lavin plays the title character, a widowed single mother relocating from New Jersey to Los Angeles to relaunch a singing career, who winds up a waitress near Phoenix after her car breaks down on the way. The star occupied a relatively straight role amid a cast of oddballs: the outrageous Flo (Polly Holliday), whose catch phrase “Kiss my grits” was a meme in its day; the mousy Vera (Beth Howland); and Vic Tayback, repeating his role from the film, as loud but lovable Mel, in whose diner Alice settles in for a nine-season, 202-episode run.
One of Linda Lavin’s last roles was that of nosy neighbor Phyllis Adelman in “No Good Deed” on Netflix.
(Netflix)
It was a comedy about working women, in the decade of the women’s movement — Norman Lear’s “One Day at a Time,” about a single mother and her daughters getting by, premiered the year before. As Alice, Lavin projects a certain solidity not distinct from a certain sexiness; she’s Rosie the Riveter with a line of plates balanced on her arm. No pushover.
Her voice had a penetrating edge — one thinks of New York, though she was not by birth a New Yorker — she could modulate when the part required, but whatever the character Lavin spoke with a stage actor’s precision. She could be sweet, evil, overbearing, put-upon, thoughtful, impulsive, girlish, vulnerable or manipulative and superimpose selected qualities for extra complexity, always with a compressed energy, obvious or veiled. Lavin was the grandchild of Russian immigrants, and in later years she often played variations on the Jewish mother — lower class, middle class, upper class. Standing in for Simon’s own in “Broadway Bound” finally earned her a Tony Award in 1987.
Lavin belonged to the stage and screen, and to their attendant communities, in equal measures, in a way rare for American actors; there were times she concentrated on one to the exclusion of the other, and times when she alternated between them, but never with lessening prestige. She might have worked less or more at times and moved between starring, recurring and guest roles, but there was no downhill slope to her career. (She stayed busy in the pandemic with a very funny Web series, “Yvette Slosch, Agent,” in which she misguidedly guides the career of jazz violinist Aaron Weinstein.) She was a great lady of the theater, in a down to earth way; on television, her mere presence lent a production class, however much class her character might lack.
The series in which she starred after “Alice” were, like most, short-lived; all were multicamera network shows, tailor-made for a theater person, the equivalent of putting a play on its feet week after week. “Room for Two” (ABC, 1992) paired her with screen daughter Patricia Heaton, whose New York TV morning show she joins as a quirky commentator. In “Conrad Bloom” (NBC, 1998) and again in “9JKL” (CBS, 2017), she was cast as the mother to characters played by Mark Feuerstein. In the former, she is glamorous and gets to sing a verse of “Steam Heat” and dance a little. (Lavin, who sang the “Alice” theme, also had a cabaret act.) In the latter, Feuerstein lives in an apartment between his parents — Elliott Gould played Lavin’s husband — and his brother’s family, failing to establish boundaries. Throughout her career, Lavin did not so much enter a scene as sweep into it.
She was mom again, to Sean Hayes, in “Sean Saves the World” (NBC, 2013-14). There were roles in Chuck Lorre’s kidney donor sitcom “B Positive” as a sparky resident of an assistant living facility, and “Santa Clarita Diet” (Netflix, 2017) as a senior brought back to life, in an undead, zombified way. You could find her there, blood smeared around her mouth, sharing a lunch of human with Drew Barrymore. None were bad, but that is almost beside the point. She was great in them all.
Movie Reviews
‘Night Nurse’ Review: A Caretaker Explores Her Kink for Elder Abuse in the Year’s Strangest Erotic Thriller
There are any number of erotic thrillers in which rich old men are robbed blind and/or left for dead, but Georgia Bernstein’s admirably bizarre “Night Nurse” might be the first movie of its kind where elder abuse is the source — and possible subject— of its erotic thrills. If there are others, I’m not sure I want to know.
But this woozy debut feature doesn’t rely on its audience being turned on by the relationship between a nubile caretaker and her dementia-addled patient. Their psychosexual bond, meanwhile, hinges on cold-calling vulnerable old people under the guise of a grandchild in financial distress. (“I’m in trouble, nana, send me $10,000 or I’ll be left to rot in jail!” That sort of thing). With its slim wisp of a premise stretched into a Strickland-esque dreamscape that substitutes kink for conflict, the film itself hardly seems convinced by its own wrinkled lust — all desperate kisses and non-touching poses of subservience. More important to Bernstein is what that lust reveals about her characters’ deepest needs, specifically how their need to care and be cared for can be as easily perverted as any other form of desire.
As moody and weightless as the noir-accented score that blows through the movie like a curlicue gust of wind in an old cartoon (credit to musicians Sam Clapp and Steven Jackson), “Night Nurse” lacks the pulse required for its stray feelings to come alive. Still, the film ambiently taps into the latent eroticism of teasing out the distance between how you see yourself and who you really are. Bernstein plays with that distance like a telephone cord wrapped around her fingers, and Eleni — played by the excellent newcomer Cemre Paksoy, powerfully helpless — only frays even more as the receiver is brought near the hook. “Everything I did before today wasn’t me,” the nurse tells co-worker Mona (Eleonore Hendricks) after starting a new job at an Illinois retirement home. “It was somebody else.”
What she did before today remains unexplored (specifically, what she did to get herself fired from her last gig), but I’m guessing she’s probably changed less than she thought. There’s a faraway flicker in her eyes the moment she catches the vibe between Mona and Douglas (a ribald and elusive Bruce McKenzie), a white-haired seventysomething who shows early signs of dementia but still commands an undiminished sexual energy. “I’m not an invalid,” he coos as Mona bathes him in the tub, to which she replies, “yes, you are,” in a supplicant tone that hints at a rich history of power games between them.
Later that same night, Douglas will force Eleni to call a stranger, pretend that she’s their granddaughter, and ask for money — he’ll wrap the phone cord around the nurse’s body as she talks and shove her against the wall as they kiss. She’s into it. So into it that he has to clarify the terms of his whole deal: “If you’re looking for a pogo stick, I’m really not your guy.” But Eleni isn’t looking for anything to bounce on. She just wants to be needed, and maybe to need someone in return. Someone who will see her for who she really is and allow her the fantasy of pretending she isn’t being herself when she cons vulnerable strangers out of their money — when she exploits how enthralled those strangers are by the care they have for their loved ones.
“Night Nurse” doesn’t belabor the psychology, as Bernstein prefers to express her story through heavy-lidded suggestion. Somnambulating from the moment it starts, the film moves through a series of beautifully arranged poses that stretch their latent meaning thin across the surface (Lidia Nikonova’s cinematography lacquers every shot with a seductive dreaminess). We see Douglas smoking in a lawn chair with Mona and Eleni curled around his feet. Eleni riding in the backseat of a convertible as the wind blows through her curls. The full staff of nurses — all of them under Douglas’ sway — stumbling around his condo in a state of zonked out bliss as they roll on the prescription drugs they’ve stolen from the residents.
Once you’ve seen one shot of this movie, you’ve practically seen them all, at least until things escalate during a rushed and unsatisfying third act that forces Eleni into an honest confrontation with herself. People will do just about anything to feel needed — they’ll give whatever degree of care allows them to receive it in return. “Night Nurse” understands that desire, but remains far too numb to treat it.
Grade: C+
The Independent Film Company will relase “Night Nurse” in theaters on Friday, July 10.
Entertainment
Lucas Museum to give free annual passes to South L.A. neighbors, host community preview day
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is moving at light speed toward its Sept. 22 opening, announced Thursday that it will give free annual passes to its South L.A. neighbors living in the 90037 ZIP Code. The 300,000-square-foot, $1-billion museum located in Exposition Park will also host a special community preview day on Sept. 13, more than a week before the general public gets to step inside.
The 90037 ZIP Code has a population of more than 65,000 and is bordered roughly by the 110 Freeway to the west, Slauson Avenue to the south, Central Avenue to the east and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the north. Residents can register for passes at lucasmuseum.org/lm37 and will be alerted in August when the program launches. Pass holders can reserve tickets for themselves and one guest.
Tickets for non-pass holders go on sale July 21. They cost $25 for adults and $21 for seniors. Kids 17 and under are free.
“Storytelling has the power to bring people together and create a sense of community,” said Lucas Museum Chief Executive Tracey Bates in a news release about the program. “Through LM37, we are inviting our South Los Angeles neighbors to make the museum part of their lives and take their own path of discovery through the art, programs and experiences that will help shape this new cultural hub for Los Angeles.”
The community preview day is designed to give local business owners, community partners, civic leaders and registered LM37 pass holders a sneak peak of the 10,000 square feet of exhibition space, as well as the expansive gardens with 11 acres of park space.
The opening programming, curated by co-founder George Lucas, features 20 inaugural exhibitions across more than 30 galleries, including one titled “Star Wars in Motion,” containing vehicle designs, high-speed racers, flying vessels, props, costumes and illustrations from the first six films in the beloved franchise.
More than 1,200 objects will be on display from Lucas’ personal collection of narrative art. Highlights include work by Norman Rockwell and Dorothea Lange, as well as a variety of manga, children’s book illustrations and comics.
Last year’s “Superman” ended with Iggy Pop singing “Because I’m a punk rocker, yes I am” — an ironic coda for a superlatively square hero. But it rings straightforwardly true for Superman’s cousin.
Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El, or Supergirl, sports not a spandex suit but a Blondie T-shirt. When we meet her in Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl,” she’s been on an interstellar bender for days. She’s more Courtney Love than Clark Kent.
Nonchalant and sarcastic, Kara is also a little Han Solo-ish, you might say, given that she moves capriciously through the galaxy in her junky spaceship while getting in fights in extraterrestrial bars. She’s a welcome, jagged riff on more buttoned-up superheroes, and Alcock is terrific in the role. If only “Supergirl” was as good as she is.
While the latest DC release, and second under James Gunn’s stewardship, has its moments, “Supergirl” struggles to match Kara’s punk-rock energy with an equally spirited supporting cast and story.
Skepticism seems to have gathered for “Supergirl” ahead of its release. Many fans have argued it wasn’t the right next step for DC Universe. But I’m not so sure. Alcock’s breezy cameo in “Superman” was one of that movie’s highlights. Handing the follow-up to her, and her faithful floating dog Krypto, strikes me as an extremely natural next step. When in doubt, follow the dog.
And much of “Supergirl” is winning. It resides almost entirely in space, touching down only momentarily on Earth. In its consistently creative production design, clever needle drops and underdog story arc, “Supergirl” resides a little closer to Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies than other DC entries. Its outer space is filled with cosmic detritus, mean characters and cute critters. Seth Rogen as the voice of a tiny alien co-piloting a space bus is an inspired concoction, as is a shabbier sci-fi realm with rest stops along the intergalactic highway.
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