Linda Lavin's husband tells the whole story

How horribly sad. And scary - other than the wheezing she had no other symptoms. That's like Christopher Reeve's wife; she only went to the doctor because of difficulties with her voice when rehearsing for a performance.

I follow Linda on Instagram and it's clear she struck gold with Steve after two unhappy marriages. They were lucky to have each other.

Well, there's my cry for the day. Having been through losing loved ones in front of me I felt his pain and wept for him. At least they had 25 great years together. Years that he'll be able to look back on with great fondness that will hopefully give him the comfort he needs.

Why is this necessary? Doesn't he have any sense of privacy?!

Ok, but this video is a little creepy. He tells the paramedics to stop doing CPR because she has a DNR? I know I'm jaded, but a few of those little 'breakdowns' he had seemed a bit staged - and with no actual tears. "We had our own separate lives." I'm sure you did, you were 20 years younger than her.

I don't trust this guy.

RIP, Linda. I hope I'm wrong.

I'm sure he felt it was necessary because he knew how loved she was by so many fans. And I also think he felt it would help him in his grieving to talk about her. I know when I've lost close family and/or friends I wanted to talk about them to anyone and everyone because in a strange way talking about them kept them alive to some degree, and gave me comfort.

[quote]RIP, Linda. I hope I'm wrong.

They were together 25 years, r5...you're wrong.

They were married for 20 years, together for 25. They met 26 years ago in NC.

She lost both her ex husbands (the deadbeat Kip Niven & Ron Liebman) in 2019.

r7 Melania and Donald have been married 20, but I'm sure she has always been genuinely in love with him.

^ You made me laugh so hard I almost knocked a lung loose.

Very sad story, even though he does seem a little off, and not just because of the tragedy of her death. But, who knows...

I can hear Ron Leibman yelling Get the hell out o' here with your intimate portrait!

The poor man is still trying to process being left alone. I get the feeling from listening to him that they were just really good people.

Do we think he's heterosexual?

r14 Doubtful, but I'm sure they did care for each other.

Years ago I really had the hots for Ron Liebman. That scene from Norma Rae when his shirt was wide open exposing his beautiful hairy chest set my loins afire.

The Kip Niven divorce was very messy.

r17 Ohh, tell us more

I don't think her demise was terribly sad. So many suffer and linger with cancer much longer. And she was mid 80s.

R18- He was in that scene in the 1974 movie Earthquake in the conservatory. He was rather cute back in ca. 1974. He did not look heterosexual either.

I think the only husband out of the three that was hetero was Ron Liebman.

Yes, r9, they're exactly the same situation.

r21. Bless your heart, I'm trying to see where someone said it was the exact same situation?

r20 Ok, what does that have to do with messy divorce as stated in r17?

New York Times on the divorce

Second husband Kip Niven was a GOLDDIGGER

Word on the street was that Linda kept a 27-year-old sugarson as her sidepiece 'til the very end.

Yeah I guess the no tears thing did give me pause.

But I choose to believe they cared for each other

Niven spent their entire marriage doing nothing to help it or improve it. As Linda said, he put nothing into it. And she helped raise his children. Then he demanded $6.5 million lump sum alimony. He ended up with 1/10th that.

[quote]At least they had 25 great years together. Years that he'll be able to look back on with great fondness that will hopefully give him the comfort he needs.

It doesn't work that way. Sorry, it just doesn't.

I’m sorry, r29. You know we love you here though so I’m giving you a hug.

[quote] was he mean to your mother, though?

That was not the kind of emotional breakdown one can fake. That he produced no noticeable tears means nothing.

The video is creepy as fuck. And he’s obviously gay. They led “separate lives.” Do the math, people.

I'd console him by slobbering all over his cock.

Exhibit A for why you shouldn't post something like this in the freshest first hours of grief.

I always liked when Lavin got tired of playing just Alice and took on a second role as Vera's landlady, Mrs. Walden, a Holocaust survivor always up to no good in a wacky way!

What about this longtime actress friend who was staying with them for Christmas? Barbara something? Something tells me she has an ill-gotten apartment at Manhattan Plaza like Jan whatserface did,

R35- Jean Stapleton played Mrs. Kleinschmidt and Mrs. Bunker simultaneously in a 1978 episode of All In The Family.

I see no cause for tears.

[quote] The video is creepy as fuck. And he’s obviously gay. They led “separate lives.”

Do shut the fuck up when you clearly know absolutely nothing of what you're talking about.

[quote] It doesn't work that way. Sorry, it just doesn't.

Well, maybe not to you. It can and does for others.

Sad yet extremely odd video.

What a QWEEN. He's complaining in the video that he had a chill and the cops wouldn't give him a blanket .

Very sad . I thought of my husband of 30 years who left in a heartbeat. No warning. Especially cruel to our older son and daughter, who experienced a very happy family.

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that he could be as nasty and mean to me, and block out all the good.

So I was struck by her husbands words ; however , it is rather odd, as it just happened , with those goddamn birds squawking

It does seem super weird that he felt a need to share all of that.

I think OP is the husband.

The link was first posted here with less than 100 views.

R45 no. I'm the OP. I happened to do a search on Linda Lavin just minutes after it sent live.

Even his bouts of almost tears seemed fake .

Reminded me of Seinfeld episode when Jerry gets letter from gfriend and it’s lifted from chapter two .

Where did this guy lift his speech from ? A cross between Rod McKuen and Wayne dyer ?

I have that jacket...and that back yard he is renting (or Linda was renting) looks tragic. The windows behind him is boarded up and I can see an overhead telephone wire!

Uh oh, he’ll have to do something about that wire .

r43 "my husband of 30 years who left in a heartbeat"

Where did he go?

r7 Your reaction is no more factual than anyone else's

That's so sad.

Although my mom didn't succumb so quickly, her diagnosis was similar to Linda Lavin's. She was slowing down, having trouble breathing, so we took her to the doctor, and that's when they found a large mass in her lung. She lived for about one month after the diagnosis.

The sad thing about lung cancer is that you usually don't find out you have it until it's too late.

The good thing is that it sounds like she didn't suffer for long.

R16 I liked Ron Liebman too. I felt he could teach me things.

[quote]R43 "my husband of 30 years who left in a heartbeat"

[quote]Where did he go?

To the Piggly Wiggly for milk, Rose.

It sounds like she died like an old friend of mine. She and her husband had gone out for lunch and when they returned home and drove into the driveway they were waiting for the garage door to open and she told her husband "hurry up because I can't breathe". They got inside, he helped her out of the car into the kitchen and she dropped dead in his arms. She'd had a pulmonary embolism and it killed her just that fast.

R56 As awful as it sounds, that's the way I wanna go. Really quickly.

Lots of cruel and obnoxious takes on here.

Some of you need to rediscover your humanity.

He was being open and vulnerable about he experience (yeah, he wanted a fucking blanket because he was outside for an extended time dutifully staying with the body, assholes).

The poor guy is grieving. I'm sure this is therapeutic for him. Cut him some slack.

You can't pay a lot of attention to what some say around here. What they say here and how they really feel are many times very different. They just like to stoke anger in others online because they know they can get away with it. Watching other get mad at something they've said gives them joy.

Are we sure foul play wasn't involved?

Mysterious friend blows in from out of town playing the doting caretaker.

Linda goes into arrest on the side of the road.

Hubby is very adamant there is a DNR in place (though he has no such paperwork) and argues with the EMTs over their protocol.

Something very fishy here.

R61 The Law and Order episode script is being written at this very moment.

r60 You're very invested in this thread and defending this husband. Interesting.

^^ Case in point.

R63 Yeah, what the hell is up with that shit, someone defending a person whose spouse has just died?

That's really fucked up.

R50

Out the door never to return

Even with his (alleged) grief, the husband seems off, possibly shady. "Can I get a blanket?" "Please note that she has a DNR order." Mmmhmm.

R67 Sounds like he belongs to a small foreign faction.

R60

Yes, weird take . ….. it was odd however when he said he forgot the DNR???? Something like he didn’t put it in his pocket ?

Who the hell does that ??? The DNR is on file with the hospital

R67 Wait for the autopsy results, Mrs. Columbo.

r70 Dumbass, no one needs the autopsy results. That's not the issue. The issue is this fake sadness / odd video from the husband. His 'grief' is what's suspicious, not her cause of death. Do keep up.

Here, R71. These are for you so you can start your investigation.

r72 Meh, you tried

R71 If there was foul play, an autopsy would reveal that. She had lung cancer and was about to go through radiation. Her husband called the doctor when she became weak, the doctor told him to get to the ER immediately. She died during the drive there. Paramedics came, worked for over 30 minutes to try and revive her, declared her dead.

Sometimes people just die tragically and their loved ones grieve about it. It would be fun to turn this into a murder mystery, but there's really nothing mysterious about it.

R72 Let me know when you start.

I do believe we are all missing the important point here...

Who got to enjoy the rib roast?

r74 Are you retarded? No one is suggesting foul play. We are questioning the authenticity of the guy's odd "grieving" and his strange story in the video. Learn to read.

R69 He was being sarcastic. Nobody carries around a DNR with them; that's the point he was trying to make.

If you've ever seen someone attached to an AED and undergoing chest compressions, it's a very traumatic thing to witness. Watching his wife go through it was probably awful for him, and he wanted it to stop. He wanted her to die according to her wishes.

This isn't rocket science.

R77 Obviously, you're the one with some cognitive disabilities. You've gone on and on about her husband's "odd grieving." What exactly are you implying, Mrs. Columbo?

r79 I hope your day improves, dear. You're having trouble reading. Perhaps walk outside at some point? I really don't mean that in a snide way. I hope all is well.

r79 please try to read r77 again

Based on zero personal knowledge of this guy, who has previously made no attempt for the spotlight, Datalounge decides he is inauthentic! weird! and possibly murderous!

Maybe he was just doing what he said, which is to help her fans understand what happened. Humans process their emotions unpredictably, and it won’t always get them a Tony Award. I found his video insightful and moving, not a cause for investigation.

R80 So...you can't tell us what you're implying.

Got it.

Enjoy your day, Mrs. Columbo (don't quit your day job at Dairy Queen).

r82 Wait, I missed the part where anyone was suggesting he was murderous?

A few of us just think his sadness is... questionable - not that he had anything to do with her murder. It's very challenging to grasp for r83, I understand. She's very stressed, and can't read what's been written for her several times - not implied, mind you - actually spelled out - "A few of us just think his sadness is... questionable - not that he had anything to do with her murder"

I'll let you carry on now, I've exhausted efforts to help you.

R84 Oh, honey. If you're questioning the husband's "sadness," you're definitely implying something.

But keep diggin' that hole. Your head's almost completely immersed in it. :-)

She was an 87 year-old with lung cancer. There was nothing murderous or particularly shocking about her death.

r86 Agreed.

That husband's fake sadness was strange, though!

Killer or not, I want his big dick to punch me in the fart box!

I can't believe the naysayers here "questioning the authenticity" of the man's grief. Or the pearl clutchers' disgust at his "lack of a sense of privacy". Christ.

R78 Reading comprehension was never my strong suit, but you’re right — it was sarcastic. I guess I was perplexed by his detailed wordy explanation of his grief .

Didn’t he have anyone to talk with , instead of broadcasting it to the whole fucking world, kind of disrespectful to her memory

r89 is new to DL, clearly

He told it like it was but apparently many have difficulty with the realities of life and death. Maybe it was therapeutic for him to do so. In the age of social media, I don't find it so outrageous that someone would choose to share that kind of moment with the world, especially when it relates to a famous person with so many fans who would like to know what happened.

Was he merely just trying to fuel the 2nd 🥈(always risky) DL Lavin death thread?

I thought it was a great post. Addressing a difficult topic that most people bottle up inside and never openly discuss. And, as a fan of Linda's, I appreciate having all the information he provided.

It was definitely endearing having him give us a visual of her dead on the side of the street, while he reminded paramedics not to resuscitate her, and asked them for a blanky. I appreciated all that information as well!

Do you think he's ready to start dating? Asking for a friend.

R96 Check Grindr in that area

Kiss my rib roast!

Polly H after the news of Linda's passing

Fuck off, R39. I watched this video again and this guy is defining the term “oversharing.” It raises suspicions, actually. I hear Wicked is on VOD now so go flick your bean to the Galinda stuff and stop getting all snotty about others’ opinions, why dontcha. Good girl.

[quote] The DNR is on file with the hospital

The person providing life saving care has to see the DNR. The ambulance service likely had no association with a particular hospital other than delivering people for treatment. That's why most people who have a DNR have it on a bracelet or a necklace they wear all the time.

[quote] why dontcha. Good girl.

Ya mutha!

The fraus over on All That Chat think his video message is a beautiful thing. Poor deluded souls.

So she died in the car or on the sidewalk? Either way it was unnecessary, he should’ve kept her at home to die in peace in her bed.

How tacky.

[quote] he should’ve kept her at home to die in peace in her bed.

He had no idea she was about to die. He was doing what her doctor said to do, take her to the hospital.

R106, you spoke to this doctor?

[quote]he does seem a little off

He probably had to listen to her daily singing.

BOPPITY BOP, BITCHES!

That (alleged) queen is secretly singing “Ding Dong, the witch is dead.” That whole “please do not resuscitate her!” “May I get a blanket, guys, I’m so chilly!” was 100% a sense of relief.

R106 Bless your heart.

He has cockatoo hair.

At 87 years old, they were going to put that poor woman through radiation treatment ? Going through that would have killed her before the cancer.

I like to imagine they were all bopping along to this tune in the car before tragedy struck.

Just think, had she lived long enough she could have sang...

THERE'S A NEW DATA LOUNGE...

The husband sent a friend request to my partner yesterday. 🤔 Which he accepted.

R116 It’s probably just part of his grieving

He opens with I'm sorry for your loss, as opposed to saying OUR loss.

R107 If you watch the video, you'll see where her husband says he called the doctor and the doctor told him to get her to the hospital immediately.

R113 These days, radiation treatments aren't nearly as debilitating as they used to be. Radiation can be pinpointed precisely to the cancer cells that need to be killed, so the side effects are usually nothing more than fatigue.

It's chemo that's still extremely rough on the body. It's likely an 87-year-old woman would have a difficult time with chemo, but not radiation.

People need to re-learn how to be private.

STFU. Nobody deserves to know every damn detail about your life (and death, in this case).

The saddest part is having to sit on the ground of the side of the Pacific Coast Highway with cars zooming by with the body as you wait an hour and half for the coroner to show up.

[quote]He has cockatoo hair.

Well, how many? One or two?

He is no stranger to many, many cocks.

[quote]The saddest part is having to sit on the ground of the side of the Pacific Coast Highway with cars zooming by with the body as you wait an hour and half for the coroner to show up.

Used to be scared, used to cry

Funniest thing, the saddest part is cancer was why

Cookin' rib roasts for nothin' was

My favorite sport

I had to get out, stopped breathin'

'cause life's too short

There's an old girl in town

'cause I'm feelin dead

Got Rigor mortis, got a song

For the PCH

Things aren't great when you lay down

Off your own two feet

And this girl's just gonna lay

Til the coroner arrives, DNR's sure are so swe-EEEEEEEEEEE-et!

I think his shared video of what happened to his wife in her final days / hours is much more raw and sincere than what Alan Hamel did for his late wife Suzanne Somers a few months after she died.

And he and Hamel aren't the only two husbands to release such a video or do an interview about the passing of their loved one - I'm pretty positive Olivia Newton-John's husband did something similar (but not too revealing) as did her daughter Chloe.

R125 Was that supposed to be humorous ?

*fap fap fap*

Do you think Linda made him promise to deliver a 17 minute video confession after her death as a gift to the fans?

Is the Barbara actress Barbara Weetman?

Apparently, Barbara owns a bar called the Blue Post in Wilmington and she and Linda went way back.

What is Boggle?

He seems like he is a little woo-woo/new agey, open with his feelings in a way that many DLers cannot relate to.

I'm the complete opposite - when someone in my life has died, I completely shut down emotionally and just try to pretend like nothing happened. That's not exactly healthy and probably would look like an "odd" way of grieving to a lot of people too.

Anyway, the point is that everyone processes things in their own way and you don't get a handbook on how to behave after losing a partner, unless you are a robot. He made the video for Linda's fans. Nobody else was forced to watch it if they weren't interested.

...and then Barbara and I ate the rib-roast.

R133 I'm a big fan of Linda's, and I actually appreciate the very rare glimpse in to her final moments.

Rest well, Linda. A life well done indeed.

R135 agreed. She had a great career and a long life. I think all of us would like to die in bed, or asleep, in a peaceful way, but many times it’s out of our control.