Lynn Cohen has died. Best known to TV audiences for her regular role as housekeeper Magda on HBO’s Sex And The City, Cohen appeared in more than 100 projects across her long career, including memorable turns in Steven Spielberg’s Munich and the second Hunger Games film, Catching Fire.
Born in Missouri in the 1930s, Cohen spent most of her early career on the stage, not making her film debut until Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery in 1993, where she played the key subject of the hypothetical whodunnit. (She would work with Allen again four years later, with a small part in 1997's Deconstructing Harry.) At roughly the same time, she picked up one of the two roles that would be a recurring part of her filmography for more than a decade: That of semi-regular judge Elizabeth Mizener on Law & Order. Dick Wolf, obviously, never met a talented character actor he wouldn’t hold on to for a later use; Cohen ended up playing the part 12 times across the franchise’s long existence (plus two more unaffiliated guest star roles on SVU).
Cohen’s resume is a long list of older women smilingly refusing to take the shit of others, from veteran survivor Mags in Catching Fire, to cheerfully obstinate housekeeper Magda on SaTC. (She reprised the role in both of the show’s follow-up films.) But that tendency toward quiet steel reached its apex in what was possibly her most high-profile performance: As Israeli leader Golda Meir in Spielberg’s Munich, who, in a brief speech, lays out the ethical and political rationale behind all the bloody retaliation to come:
In recent years, Cohen’s roles ranged from smaller projects like the recent God Friended Me, to numerous appearances in low-budget films, to notable-if-brief roles on series like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Master Of None.
Cohen was 86. She is survived by Ronald T. Cohen, her husband of 56 years.
6 Comments
God damn… talk about a gut punch. She epitomized the wonder that was/is a character actor: They might not get top billing but, more often than not, they’re the character you remember most from a show/movie. She was one of those inimitable actors who owned every scene she was in, who made you sit up an pay attention when she was on screen for her limited time… so very sad to see her go, but also delighted she had the career that she did <3
“She epitomized the wonder that was/is a character actor: They might not get top billing but, more often than not, they’re the character you remember most from a show/movie.”Perfect explanation of a character actor. May I use this?
Absolutely 🙂
I especially remember her from the 1994 film ‘Vanya on 42nd Street” playing Vonenskaya. That was Julianne Moore’s first film (actually, her second but the first to get released).
Not quite; she was in a handful of released movies before that, beginning with Tales From The Darkside: The Movie. Vanya is listed as her second film if you look just at Wikipedia’s “selected” filmography for her, so that might be what you saw. That was definitely the time when she was blowing up huge, as her role in Todd Haynes’ Safe was right around the corner.
Vanya on 42nd Street is a perfect movie. The simplicity of it somehow makes it so intense