Lainie Kazan

The Understudy Who Wouldn't Wait

Lainie Kazan spent eighteen months waiting for Barbra Streisand to get sick. It was 1964, and Kazan was covering the lead role in the Broadway musical Funny Girl. But Streisand had iron health, and Kazan only got to perform on stage in a couple of matinee shows. That time in the shadows ended when she decided her face and voice deserved a space of their own, without depending on someone else's voice.

She gave up the security of her contract and set out on the New York nightclub circuit. There, she was nobody's shadow.

In 1970, she posed for Playboy magazine in a feature she financed herself to promote her career as a singer. It was a risky move for the era, as it blended the prestige of a jazz voice with commercial sensuality. But the move allowed her to open her own venues, Lainie's Room, in cities such as Los Angeles and New York.

That stage of her career as a businesswoman and singer helped define her stage presence.

From sheet music to screenplay

Her path to the movies was no bed of roses. During the 1970s she appeared in minor productions and TV series where casting directors kept looking for her tough, outspoken woman image. Everything changed in 1982 with the release of My My Favorite Year. In this film she played Belle Steinberg Carroca and earned a Golden Globe nomination, which firmly put her on the radar of major Hollywood studios.

Kazan soon realized that her look and energy suited comedy roles better than textbook drama.

She worked under Francis Ford Coppola on Corazonada during 1981. It was a complex, experimental shoot that didn't achieve the box office success everyone expected, but it gave her a cult actress reputation. From there, her work pace became frantic. She alternated film with appearances in series such as St. Elsewhere and The Paper Chase.

She never stopped singing. In 1990 she received a Tony Award nomination for her role in the stage adaptation of My Favorite Year, closing an unusual creative circle in the industry.

The mother of all hits

Her global breakthrough came when she was already a veteran of the industry. In 2002, she played Maria Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. No one expected an independent production with a $5 million budget to gross more than 360 million dollars worldwide. Kazan brought the perfect mix of maternal authority and dry humor that the script for Nia Vardalos needed.

The success was so overwhelming that it kept her in the role for two decades.

In 2016, she filmed the first sequel, and in 2023 she appeared in the third installment of the franchise, shot in Greece. In between, she kept busy on television with roles in Desperate Housewives and Modern Family. Her ability to connect with audiences remained intact despite the passing years and shifting audience tastes.

Beyond her acting, she spent years teaching in the Theater Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

In 2017, she was involved in a minor incident over an alleged shoplifting at a California supermarket. Images of the actress leaving the store made headlines around the world, but the case was resolved without major legal consequences. That episode was a reminder that even the most respected figures on screen have human flaws away from the spotlight.

Her last credited big-screen appearance came in 2023 with the release of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, directed by Nia Vardalos.