Bunny Levine, 'Gilmore Girls' and 'La La Land' actor, dies at 97

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Set us as preferred Bunny Levine, a school librarian turned Hollywood actor, has died.She was 97.The Tarzana resident died in her sleep Aug.

20, her representative Mike Eisenstadt confirmed to The Times.Born Bernice Utal on Dec.

22, 1928, in East Orange, N.J., to parents Rudolph Utal and Elsie Elizabeth Rubin, the actor had a lifelong passion for entertainment during the golden age of Hollywood cinema.In her IMDb autobiography, she recalled early memories of subjecting relatives to renditions of “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” from the 1935 film “The Night Is Young.”But Levine would put those acting dreams on pause while she focused on raising three children alongside her husband, Bernie Levine.

Working primarily as a school librarian — with book talks and storytelling sessions — helped her “fill her performing aspirations,” she recalled.Levine held two master’s degrees, from New York University and Columbia University.

After taking early retirement, she took acting classes and auditioned for roles, beginning her career with magazine ads and commercials.Her earliest acting credit was the 1988 cult classic “Slime City”; Levine was 60 at the time.

In 1991, Levine and her husband founded Actors Connection in New York City, an education and networking acting hub.After the death of her husband in 2003, Levine relocated to Los Angeles, where she continued booking one- to two-episode roles on prominent shows including “Gilmore Girls,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “Ugly Betty,” “Criminal Minds,” “2 Broke Girls,” “New Girl,” “The Mindy Project,” “Fuller House,” “Shameless” and more.“I think of myself as a very unfunny human being.But I’m almost always cast in comic roles,” Levine wrote in her IMDb profile.Brandon Kjar, Levine’s manager, said that she continued to audi...