Personal Life
Lavin has been married three times. Her first marriage to Ron Leibman ended in divorce in 1980. Her second marriage to Kip Niven, who played the boyfriend of Beth Howland's character, Vera Louise Gorman-Novak, ended in divorce in 1992. While Lavin has no biological children, she is the stepmother to Niven's children Jim and Kate Niven and the grandmother to Jim's sons Grayson and Talen and daughter Scout.
Lavin married actor, artist and musician Steve Bakunas in 2005. The couple resides in Wilmington, North Carolina where they are committed community members working together to rehabilitate impoverished neighborhoods including renovating many homes, donating a park to the city and creating a community theater, the Red Barn Studio. In 1997, Lavin founded The Linda Lavin Arts Foundation in Wilmington, "to promote and foster the advancement of the performing and visual arts, with special emphasis on arts in education. Her foundation has created a theater program called Girl Friends, whose purpose is to raise the self-esteem of at-risk teenage girls of the inner city."
In Wilmington, she directs for the stage. One of her directorial credits there is an innovative 1998 production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It performed in a Brazilian jazz style. In both Wilmington and New York she teaches master classes in acting and singing.
In September 2012 Lavin announced she would sell her historic Wilmington, North Carolina residence and return to New York City.
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