Lainie Kazan

Lainie Kazan (born Lainie Levine; May 15, 1940)[1][2] is an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for St. Elsewhere and the 1993 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for My Favorite Year. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her role in My Favorite Year (1982). Kazan played Maria Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and its sequel film My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2.

Kazan was born Lainie Levine in Brooklyn[3][4] as the daughter of Carole (née Kazan) and Benjamin Levine.[5] Carole was of Sephardic Jewish extraction from Spain and Turkey; the family moved to Jerusalem.[6][7] Benjamin, who was of Russian-Jewish descent, worked as a gambling bookmaker.[8][9] Kazan has described her mother as “neurotic, fragile and artistic.”[10][11][9] Kazan attended Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High School with Barbra Streisand, for whom she would later understudy. She graduated in 1956. Kazan studied theatre at HB Studio[12] and graduated from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York in 1960. While at Hofstra, Kazan appeared in school musicals written and directed by a classmate, future Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola as well as actor James Caan.[