Bunny Levine, the actor who appeared in projects such as Gilmore Girls, Law & Order, and La La Land, has died at the age of 97.

Levine died at home in Tarzana, California, the actor’s representative confirmed to NBC Los Angeles –with police stating that the death “appeared to be from natural causes”.

An unusual story in the youth-oriented world of Hollywood, Levine came to the industry late, in her fifties, after raising her three children and spending over two decades spent working as a school librarian.

Her first role came in the 1988 horror-comedy Slime City. This was followed by parts in the 1990 film Cadillac Man and a smattering of other roles throughout the Nineties.

She became a more prolific face on TV in the 2000s, appearing in shows such as Everybody Loves Raymond, Gilmore Girls, Ugly Betty, and Community, as well as the Adam Sandler comedy You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.

“[Everybody Loves Raymond] was the first bigger thing I did in Los Angeles,” she recalled, in an interview with Mel magazine.

“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 had small roles in a slew of TV series and films across the 2010s, including an uncredited appearance in the Oscar-winning musical La La Land.

Her recent parts include a role on the acclaimed reality-comedy Jury Duty, and the 2024 June Squibb road movie Thelma.

“I think of myself as a very unfunny human being,” she said in a 2013 interview with Washington State Magazine. “But I’m almost always cast in comic roles.”

As a student, Levine studied the dramatic arts, but quickly decided that she wasn’t cut out to make it professionally.

“In college, it began to dawn on me that I wasn’t a good leading lady,” she told the outlet. “There were other women who were just as good as me, but tall. And beautiful.”

Decades later, after retiring from her career as a librarian, she started re-considering a career in acting.

“I was doing community theater and went right in to whatever I could,” she said. “The first television show that I spoke on was Law and Order. I was a witness in a lineup who couldn’t be sure. My line was ‘I think it’s number two.’”

Her last film role came in the 2026 indie horror The Cure.