Lynn Cohen

Lynn Cohen.

The great Lynn Cohen passed away on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 2020 at her home in NYC. Lynn was a veteran stage and screen actor. She was a pillar of the New York theater community. She was omnipresent on the stage, on the screen. She was most famously known for playing Magda on Sex and the City, Golda Meir in Munich, and Mags in The Hunger Games. To me, and to many, though, she was Mistress Lynn - a constant source of mentorship, support, and encouragement. She was an actor's actor. And she loved women actors with fierce camaraderie.

Lynn was instrumental in launching and building The Muse Project. Since our first conversation about the initiative back in 2015, Lynn was all in. She and her husband, Ron Cohen, came to nearly every event, every performance, every reading, every moment that was Muse. I am forever grateful to Lynn and her belief in this project.

Lynn taught me that success in this business is much more predicated on vulnerability and generosity than it is on self focus or single minded ambition. She taught me that what is paramount is the drive of curiosity, the genuine love and fulfillment of the (hard) work and challenging collaborations, the interest in other artists, and the deep understanding that our art is a tapestry of thoughtfully woven interdependence. She also taught me that showing up for others is more than half the battle.

The hole that's been left in her wake is enormous. You can read The New York Times obituary here.

Rest in peace, Lynn. We will miss you, endlessly.

-Jocelyn Kuritsky, Artistic Director, The Muse Project

Actor Jocelyn Kuritsky, playwright Kim Davies, & actor Lynn Cohen at The Muse Project's 2015 kickoff at Poverty Row Entertainment. Photo by Beth Gittleman.

Actors Lynn Cohen, Lynne Marie Rosenberg, Kyra Miller, & Chelsea Dee at The Muse Project's 2015 kickoff at Poverty Row Entertainment. Photo by Beth Gittleman.

Actor/director John Gould Rubin, actor Lynn Cohen, and actor/director Ron Cohen at The Muse Project's 2017 kickoff at Torn Page. Photo by Anna Rooney.

Actor Lynn Cohen and actor Black Eyed Susan at The Muse Project's 2017 kickoff at Torn Page. Photo by Anna Rooney.

Actor Lynn Cohen presenting her Muse Project at Torn Page in 2017. Photo by Anna Lathrop.

Actor/director/dramaturge Ron Cohen, actor Lynn Cohen, & director/dramaturge Ian Morgan pose in The Flea Theater's lobby. Photo by Jocelyn Kuritsky.

Actor Lynn Cohen in her Mini Muse presentation of Lewis Black's "Dottie's Hime" at The Flea Theater for Musings. Photo by Jocelyn Kuritsky.

Post presentation talkback for Lynn Cohen's Mini Muse presentation at The Flea Theater for Musings. Photo by Jocelyn Kuritsky.

Actors Black Eyed Susan & Lynn Cohen hang out, post Lynn's Mini Muse presentation at The Flea Theater for Musings. Photo by Jocelyn Kuritsky.

Actors Zainab Musa & Lynn Cohen at The Muse Project's Mini Gala at The Flea Theater for Musings. Photo by Jocelyn Kuritsky.

Testimonials...

If you wish to add a remembrance, email us at [email protected]. Whether you knew Lynn personally, through work, or simply from seeing her onstage or onscreen, we welcome your loving words. We will happily add your testimonial.

I met Lynn several years ago when my daughter, Jocelyn, was starting her Muse Project. Prior to the first performance of Muse, Lynn sat with me in Tony Torn's home and spoke to me about her life and her career. She was curious about my work in public health, and how Jocelyn became entranced with acting, performance and the role of women in theater. What struck me about Lynn was the importance of work as the essence of her life. Retirement was not in her plans. What was in her plans was the enthusiasm to continue to work, to explore experimental theater and to champion women in theater. She was more than a friend to Jocelyn, she was also a mentor, a role model, and the personification of what it meant to be a person of integrity and honor. I last saw her in July in NYC, when Jocelyn and I had lunch with her and Ron. While a slight slower in step, she was bright, cheerful, and conversational.

-Joel Kuritsky, M.D.

Five years ago, I had an idea for a play based on some events that were happening to close family friends, but I wasn’t inspired to actually sit down and write it until I happened upon a photo of Lynn on another friend’s Facebook page from a Passover dinner they had recently shared. I had met Lynn at The Barrow Group years before in a group called FAB Women where we'd read from plays we had written or loved (or both). At one of these salons, she and Ron did the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet” - sublimely, of course - and it stuck in my heart as one of the most love-filled performances I had ever seen. So I called her up - and we had coffee - and she agreed to let me continue to be inspired by her and write the play. And I did, hearing her voice (and Ron’s), rather quickly that spring. Over the next year or so, Lynn and Ron did several private and public readings of it for me, always full of the kind of vibrant and positive energy and, of course, incomparable talent that you dream of having in the room with you when you write a play. It remains one of my favorite things I’ve ever written because of their spirits, connection and devotion to one another, now forever infused into the story. Lynn’s generosity, artistry, genius and ineffable glow were legendary. She is, and always will be, a national treasure, for which I am eternally grateful.

-Christine Toy Johnson, Actor, Playwright

I am full of love and gratitude for having known Lynn as a collaborator, but more importantly, as a family member. So many of us are blessed to have known her. She was one of the best of friends, collaborators, and a true champion of Mateo from the very beginning.

Several years ago, I wrote a film about a non-verbal child with Autism who wanders into a nursing home where he meets an actress dealing with loneliness and abandonment. The film was called A Northern Star and I wrote it for Lynn and my son, Mateo. At the time of filming, Mateo, diagnosed with Autism and ADNP syndrome, was only 7 years old. The challenge of filming the script was that Mateo isn't an actor and truly operates to the beat of his own drum. During the first table read, Mateo would not walk up to Lynn, let alone make eye contact. She didn't give up. She had known him his whole life, all 7 years at that point. She was hopeful that the scenes would work. I was lost and not confident we could achieve what I had written after the table read.

I decided that the best I could do was prep the crew to act as if we were shooting a documentary film, to stay on the sidelines, keep camera and sound rolling. What followed after signaling "action" was pure wizardry. Lynn took control and immediately found a way to connect with Mateo like no one had ever done before at that time. That experience on set will forever be one of the greatest experiences of my life. It takes my breath away to even think of it now.

Here's an excerpt from our film when the two meet and...play.

#RIP #LYNNCOHEN #LOVE

-Francisco Solorzano, Actor, Director, Filmmaker

HOW LUCKY I WAS TO HAVE KNOWN LYNN COHEN.

I have always felt myself to be extremely lucky. Lynn Cohen was one of the first real working actresses I ever got to meet and work with in NYC. Elinor Renfield cast Lynn Cohen in my first full-length based loosely on my own Jewish family, three generations, over a Thanksgiving weekend in Miami Beach. Lynn and her husband, Ron Cohen, were the heads of that onstage family. Elinor Renfield directed the first reading, later Janice Goldberg took it on, and I got to work with Lynn as basically - let's face it - my grandmother. But where my grandmother was blind or in denial, Lynn had insight!

Lynn could tell me things about my family (of characters) that I could never have seen without her deep understanding of the human spirit and our human desire to find the truth at the heart of it all. Lynn would ask all kinds of questions throughout the developmental process and beyond. I spent years on this play, and over 150 drafts, and Lynn was always in it wondering, "So the young girl is basically going out to rape herself?" and "The relationship with the young girl's father seems inappropriate, don't you think?" The questions she would ask weren't about the character she was playing but the dynamics of the family overall. "The father doesn't seem to be very interested in his wife," she observed.

Later when my traumatic memories arrived, Lynn's questions that had always affected me deeply, really started to make sense. Actors are tuned into the human psyche in surprising ways. Lynn was an exceptionally talented actor who, in a different world, might have also directed. She had a big picture kind of eye.

When Lynn got involved with The Muse Project, I was so grateful to be able to send a little support, and of course I came to see her perform. She was thrilled to be in that piece! She loved the work she was doing which was dark, rich and psychologically astute. It gave her so much room to play! She was so excited to be in that role! And her enthusiasm was contagious. I thought, I have a play somewhat similar, an absurdist mother-daughter piece called why birds fly. I shared it with her and we began to make plans to do a reading.

I was given the Mary Rogers Room at the Dramatists Guild by lottery - there's my luck again! I knew right away that all I wanted to do was get to work with Lynn again. So we set it up. She was frailer than she'd been. I had to re-paginate the script with a 64 Ariel Bold font so she could see it. We did everything on her timeline. When we rehearsed, in her kitchen, she let us know when she had to end rehearsal to rest. But while we were rehearsing she was a ball of fire! She caught nuances I never noticed before. She worked with both fine and broad strokes and found so much of the humor in it, even in such a brief rehearsal! Lucky again, she called me out for being so serious, teasing me, saying, "Yes, the play is dark, but we don't have to be!"

-Emma Goldman-Sherman, Playwright

I can still hear Lynn Cohen’s voice. Her warmth, her rasp, her laugh. She made her art look so easy. I think now, her real secret to life and work: Lynn would open herself to every moment.

The words will now fail me. I am just gutted hearing of Lynn Cohen's passing - this magnificent actress and human and friend I was so so lucky to know and even luckier that she humored me endlessly.

She was my leading woman. We met when she was in her 70's and I was 23 years old. I was looking for an “old woman” to be in a short film and what I got was an old soul and an honest-to-god muse. Lynn shows up, ready to work. Even when it’s only a kid with a video camera.

While the Widow is Away was shot over a week. We used her clothes. She did her own make-up.

I brought her back to make the feature film Hello Lonesome in 2010. There would be no film without Lynn, she was the heart of the film and it started with her. I know she was so happy to be in my films even when they were so rough and low budget and hard to make in every way.

I know because she would tell me all the time. I’ve kept every voice message Lynn ever left for me. They are the only messages in my phone. They go back a decade and bless the Apple ghosts who let them travel from phone to phone, they are still right here.

I don’t know if I have the heart to press play now and listen. Oh lord, this may break me in two. I have so many of these... here it goes:

“It’s Lynn Cohen. I have to tell you I got the most beautiful email yesterday [from someone] who [I] actually got an award from a couple years ago. He accidentally ran across Hello Lonesome on Netflix, and he went just out of his mind. I want you to read this email. It was lovely. Anyway I hope life is well, and you and the amazing wife and the baby are all... I love that you have a life, I love it. I just did The Hunger Games you know, for like five months, um, a little larger budget than we had but, a different kind of film. Ok, it’s Lynn Cohen I’ll talk to you later bye.”

Here’s another:

“So has the baby shot his first film yet? It’s Lynny, Lynn Cohen. I just have to tell you... there is not a WEEK that goes by where someone doesn’t stop me to talk to me at a train station, or an airport, or the grocery store, to talk about about While The Window is Away or Hello Lonesome. Those pieces struck such a note with people. So OKAY, hope all is well! It’s Lynn Cohen."

I can’t, with these messages. Dear reader, I’m balling. I may not be able to finish these.

Years later, this message, short and sweet:

“I have to tell you the other day in Grand Central someone stopped me again and talked to me about Hello Lonesome. Okay, It’s Lynn Cohen. Bye Bye.”

She was the most familiar face of all time, she was light itself and capable of every shade and hue.

So let Broadway dim for the day. Let all the projectors stop.

Stop everything and be grateful for your very breath. Love each other truly, completely, like Lynny did…

I have a 35mm print of Widow here in my office. That short film, made by a kid with a video camera starring a beautiful woman with long grey hair... Here it is in it’s entirety. Watch it for Lynn and her performance. I didn’t know what I was doing, truly. But she sure as hell did.

Lynn Cohen also sparkled in Hello Lonesome. Here is the trailer, you can still find that on iTunes and other places and on DVD. Hello Lonesome was nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award and was a true labor of love with a 50k budget.

-Adam Reid, Actor, Director, Producer