Lynn Carlin

{{Infobox person

| name = Lynn Carlin

| image = File:Lynn Carlin in Serpico 1976 (cropped).jpg

| alt =

| caption = Lynn Carlin in 1976

| birth_name =

| birth_date =

| birth_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.

| occupation = Actress

| years_active = 1968–1987

| spouse = {{plainlist|

{{marriage|Peter Hall|1958|1960|end=divorced}}
{{marriage|Ed Carlin|1963|1974|end=divorced}}
{{marriage|John Wolfe|1983|1999|end=his death}}

}}

| children = 2, including Dan Carlin

}}

Mary Lynn Carlin (née Reynolds) is an American retired actress. For her debut role in the 1968 John Cassavetes film Faces, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first nonprofessional performer to receive an Oscar nomination. She was later nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in Milos Forman’s Taking Off (1971).

Life and career

Lynn Carlin was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of socialite Muriel Elizabeth (née Ansley) and 'Larry Reynolds' (Laurence Kramer).{{cite web |title=Lynn Carlin |url=https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10182-117800/lynn-carlin-in-biographical-summaries-of-notable-people |website=Biographical Summaries of Notable People |publisher=myheritage.com |access-date=23 October 2023}}[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-01-30-me-1867-story.html Muriel Reynolds LA Times obituary] accessed 1-2-2016 Her father was a Hollywood business manager, and her mother worked in radio. She grew up in Laguna Beach.{{cite news |last1=Kleiner |first1=Dick |title=Lynn Carlin Nervous in Second Film Role |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42437212/lynn_carlin/ |accessdate=January 17, 2020 |work=Cumberland Evening Times |agency=Newspaper Enterprise |date=July 5, 1969 |location=Maryland, Cumberland |page=9|via = Newspapers.com}}

Carlin made her stage debut in The Women at the Laguna Beach Playhouse.{{cite web |title=Lynn Carlin |url=https://www.female.com.au/celebrities/lynn-carlin.htm |website=female.com.au |access-date=23 October 2023 |language=en}}{{cite web | url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/28899%7C102856/Lynn-Carlin/ | title=Lynn Carlin }}

Carlin, Robert Altman{{'}}s{{cite news |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title='Faces' movie review & film summary (1968) |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/faces-1968 |access-date=22 October 2023 |work=rogerebert.com |date=December 19, 1968 |language=en}} secretary-turned-actress,{{cite book |last1=Charity |first1=Tom |title=John Cassavetes: Lifeworks |date=26 June 2012 |publisher=Omnibus Press |isbn=978-0-85712-841-6 |page=99 |quote=... Lynn Carlin, a secretary who worked for another young, frustrated film-maker in the adjacent office at Screen Gems, Robert Altman. Carlin had done a little ... |language=en}}{{cite news |last1=Rosenbaum |first1=Jonathan |author1-link=Jonathan Rosenbaum |title=Faces |url=https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/06/faces/ |access-date=22 October 2023 |work=jonathanrosenbaum.net |agency=Chicago Reader |date=July 13, 2001}} earned her only Academy Award nomination in 1968 for her first feature role as John Marley's suicidal wife Maria in John Cassavetes' Faces (1968). She is the first nonprofessional to be nominated for an Academy Award.{{cite news |last1=Harford |first1=Margaret |title=Lynn Carlin: Memo Taker May Take Home an Oscar |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42437762/lynn_carlin/ |accessdate=January 17, 2020 |work=The Los Angeles Times |date=April 8, 1969 |location=California, Los Angeles |page=Part IV - 1|via = Newspapers.com}} She subsequently played wives and mothers before retiring in 1987. She next appeared in ...tick...tick...tick... (1970) as George Kennedy's ambitious, henpecking wife and returned to offbeat roles as Buck Henry's wife, searching for her missing daughter amid the hippies and drug culture of 1970s New York in Miloš Forman's Taking Off (1971).{{cite news |last1=Klemesrud |first1=Judy |title=Movies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/18/archives/-lynn-went-along-as-mom.html |access-date=22 October 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=April 18, 1971 |quote=WHAT kind of woman would go on as the very last guest on the David Frost show, where she barely gets to utter a peep, and not let it bother her; would, at the age of 33, take movie roles that make people think she is in her 40's and not let it bother her; would let herself get typecast as a hysterical suburban housewife and not let it bother her; and would play a partially nude scene— even though she has one inverted nip ple—and not let it bother her? (Well, not much, anyway.)}} The same year, she appeared in Blake Edwards' western Wild Rovers. In 1972, she was re-teamed with John Marley, again as his wife, in Bob Clark's horror film Deathdream, and her other film roles include the British drama film Baxter! (1973) as the mother of Scott Jacoby, the 1979 comedy French Postcards, and the 1982 horror film Superstition.

Carlin is perhaps best remembered as the parent of growing teen Lance Kerwin in the TV-movie James at 15 (1977) and its subsequent spin-off James at 16. In 1977, she was cast in several episodes of The Waltons as a nurse who marries the county sheriff. She appeared in the 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man Book II, and she had a recurring role on the short-lived television series Strike Force (1981–1982). She appeared in several other TV movies, including Silent Night, Lonely Night. In 1972, she appeared in an episode of Gunsmoke titled "Milligan" as the wife of Harry Morgan's character.

In 1971, she played the mother of teenage father Desi Arnaz Jr. in Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones. The same year, she played Peter Falk's wife in A Step Out of Line. In 1974, she appeared in both Terror on the 40th Floor and The Morning After. She played the wife of Sam Houston in the biopic The Honorable Sam Houston in 1975. The following year, she played Eve Plumb's mother in Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway.

In her last television movie, she played the mother of three young men manipulated into breaking their father (Robert Mitchum) out of jail in A Killer in the Family (1983). Her last acting role was a guest appearance on Murder, She Wrote in 1987 as the wife of the episode's murder victim, played by Cornel Wilde.

Personal life

Carlin was married to Peter Hall from 1958 until their divorce in 1960. Her second marriage was to Edward Carlin, with whom she had two children. This union (1963–74) also ended in divorce. Her oldest child is podcaster/journalist Dan Carlin. She was married to John Wolfe{{cite news |title=Looking into the LA radio connection to Carney's restaurant |url=https://www.dailynews.com/2022/05/09/looking-into-the-la-radio-connection-to-carneys-restaurant/ |access-date=23 October 2023 |work=Daily News |date=9 May 2022}} from 1983 until his death in 1999.{{cite news |title=John M. Wolfe; Founded Carney's Restaurants |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-apr-08-mn-25447-story.html |access-date=23 October 2023 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=8 April 1999}}

Filmography

=Film=

class="wikitable sortable"

! Year

! Title

! Role

! class="unsortable" | Notes

1968

|Faces

|Maria Forst

1970

|...tick... tick... tick...

|Julia Little

1971

|Taking Off

|Lynn Tyne

1971

|Wild Rovers

|Sada Billings

1973

|Baxter!

|Mrs. Baxter

1974

|Dead of Night

|Christine Brooks

1975

|Iron and Horse

|Meridel York

|Short

1979

|French Postcards

|Mrs. Weber

1980

|Battle Beyond the Stars

|Nell (voice)

1982

|Superstition

|Melinda Leahy

=Television=

class="wikitable sortable"

! Year

! Title

! Role

! class="unsortable" | Notes

1969

|Marcus Welby, M.D.

|Helen Stewart

|Season 1 Episode 2: "The Foal"

1969

|Silent Night, Lonely Night

|Jennifer Sparrow

|TV Movie

1969–1972

|Medical Center

|Ruth Dwyer / Louise Nolan

|2 episodes

1970

|{{sortname|The|Bold Ones: The Protectors}}

|Sister Marie Theresa

|Season 1 Episode 5: "A Thing Not of God"

1971

|A Step Out of Line

|Linda Connors

|TV Movie

1971

|Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones

|Christine Jones

|TV Movie

1971

|{{sortname|The|Bold Ones: The New Doctors}}

|Meredith Lindon

|Season 3 Episode 6: "The Glass Cage"

1971

|Cannon

|Helen Kern

|Season 1 Episode 13: "The Nowhere Man"

1972

|Gunsmoke

|Janet Milligan

|Season 18 Episode 9: "Milligan"

1972

|Love, American Style

|Ruth

|Season 4 Episode 11: "segment: Love and the Swinging Philosophy"

1972

|Emergency!

|Mrs. Patterson

|Season 2 Episode 10: "Dinner Date"

1972

|Young Dr. Kildare

|Laura Henderson

|Episode: "The Stranger"

1973

|Ironside

|Mary Jane Smith

|Season 7 Episode 1: "Confessions: From a Lady of the Night"

1973

|Hawaii Five-O

|Maxine Taylor

|Season 6 Episode 11: "The Finishing Touch"

1974

|{{sortname|The|Morning After|The Morning After (1974 film)}}

|Fran Lester

|TV Movie

1974

|{{sortname|The|Last Angry Man|nolink=1}}

|Sarah Abelman

|TV Movie

1974

|Terror on the 40th Floor

|Lee Parker

|TV Movie

1974

|Petrocelli

|Audrey North

|Season 1 Episode 4: "Edge of Evil"

1974

|Mannix

|Nancy Traherne

|Season 8 Episode 6: "Death Has No Face"

1974

|Lucas Tanner

|Ann Lefferts

|Season 1 Episode 9: "Look the Other Way"

1974

|Paper Moon

|Sue Jean

|Season 1 Episode 11: "Who Is M. P. Sellers?"

1974–1980

|Insight

|Jean / Helen Madden / Marge / Betty / Janet / Betty

|6 episodes

1975

|{{sortname|The|Honorable Sam Houston|nolink=1}}

|Margaret Houston

|TV Movie

1975

|{{sortname|The|Lives of Jenny Dolan}}

|Nancy Royce

|TV Movie

1975–1977

|{{sortname|The|Waltons}}

|Eula Mae / Sara Griffith Bridges

|5 episodes

1976

|City of Angels

|Cora Manning

|Season 1 Episode 5: "A Lonely Way to Die"

1976

|{{sortname|The|Tenth Level}}

|Barbara

|TV Movie

1976

|Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway

|Dawn's Mother

|TV Movie

1976

|Rich Man, Poor Man Book II

|Sarah Hunt

|Season 1 Episode 7: "Chapter VII"

1976

|Serpico

|Viveca Janes

|Season 1 Episode 15: "A Secret Place"

1977

|Bravo Two

|Mrs. Morgan

|TV Movie

1977

|Gibbsville

|Season 1 Episode 13: "The Grand Gesture"

1977–1978

|James at 15

|Meg Hunter

|Series regular

1978

|{{sortname|The|Bionic Woman}}

|Norma Fisk

|Season 3 Episode 15: "The Martians Are Coming, the Martians Are Coming"

1979

|Not Until Today

|Mae Henderson

|TV Movie

1979

|{{sortname|The|Incredible Hulk|The Incredible Hulk (1978 TV series)}}

|Elizabeth Collins

|Season 3 Episode 3: "Brain Child"

1979

|Barnaby Jones

|Mary Baines

|Season 8 Episode 5: "Design for Madness"

1979

|California Fever

|Mrs. Newman

|Season 1 Episode 6: "Portrait of Laurie"

1979

|Charlie's Angels

|Warden Ingram

|Season 4 Episode 6: "Caged Angel"

1979

|Mrs. Columbo

|Sheree

|Season 2 Episode 3: "Off the Record"

1980

|Tenspeed and Brown Shoe

|Alice Rynkoff

|Season 1 Episode 13: "The Treasure of Sierra Madre Street"

1980

|Lou Grant

|Catherine Marks

|Season 4 Episode 2: "Harassment"

1980–1985

|Trapper John, M.D.

|Rose Tiegs / Claire Dearborne

|3 episodes

1981

|Girl on the Edge of Town

|Selma Mantley

|TV Movie

1981

|Strike Force

|Lorraine Klein

|2 episodes

1981

|Darkroom

|Mrs. Shires

|Season 1 Episode 11: "Catnip"

1982

|{{sortname|The|Kid from Nowhere|nolink=1}}

|Molly Edward

|TV Movie

1982

|Forbidden Love

|Ella Wagner

|TV Movie

1983

|A Killer in the Family

|Dorothy Tison

|TV Movie

1987

|Murder, She Wrote

|Nicole

|Season 4 Episode 5: "The Way to Dusty Death"

2021

|Consequences

|Churchgoer

|Season 2 Episode 3: "Leap of Faith"

Awards and nominations

class="wikitable sortable"
Year ! Award ! Category ! Nominated work ! Result
rowspan="2"\| 1969 \| 3rd National Society of Film Critics Awards \| Best Actress \| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"\| Faces \| {{Nom}}
41st Academy Awards \| Best Supporting Actress \| {{Nom}}
1972 \| 25th British Academy Film Awards \| Best Actress in a Leading Role \| style="text-align:center;"\| Taking Off \| {{Nom}}

class="wikitable sortable"

Year

! Award

! Category

! Nominated work

! Result

rowspan="2"| 1969

| 3rd National Society of Film Critics Awards

| Best Actress

| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"| Faces

| {{Nom}}

41st Academy Awards