Julia Carmel, The New York Times, Feb. 22, 2020
Lynn Cohen, the veteran actress best known for her role as Magda on the hit HBO series “Sex and the City,” died on Feb. 14 at her home in Manhattan. She was 86.
Her death was confirmed by her son, Laurence Frazen.
Ms. Cohen was seen in numerous movies and television shows, and in both Broadway and Off Broadway stage productions. But she didn’t achieve her greatest fame until late in life, through her role as Magda, the stern Eastern European housekeeper employed by Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) on “Sex and the City.”
“I auditioned and they called me right away to do the episode, but my mother was turning 90 years old in Texas,” Ms. Cohen said in a 2018 interview with Cosmopolitan. “I said, ‘I would love to do this but I’m sorry, I have to be with my mother and she’s turning 90 and she’s sexier than anybody on the show.’ And they moved the date for me.”
Magda first appeared in the show’s third season, in 2000. Ms. Cohen was supposed to appear in only one episode, “Attack of the Five Foot Ten Woman,” in which Magda memorably replaces Miranda’s vibrator with a statue of the Virgin Mary and later tells her that she’ll need to learn to cook if she ever wants a boyfriend.
She married Ronald Cohen, an actor and writer, in 1964.
