Lainie Kazan was a BABE back in the day...

Last week, I watched an old (1982) favorite movie of mine titled My Favorite Year. Funny little movie set in 1954, about an Errol Flynn-type actor past his prime who's now a drunkard and lech (played well by Peter O'Toole), appearing on an early TV variety comedy show. A young Jewish writer for the show is tasked with keeping tabs on him. The writer's prototypical Jewish mother is played by Lainie Kazan; a lot of you may also remember her as the Greek mother in My Big Fat Greek Wedding or her recurring role as Fran Drescher's aunt on The Nanny.

Anyway, I was wondering if Lainie Kazan was related to the Oscar-winning director Elia Kazan, so I did a little Google research. She wasn't related to him, but I found out some cooler things about her. She was really something back in the 60s and early 70s; not just a character actress but also a great singer who recorded many albums (and she understudied for Barbra Streisand on Broadway for Funny Girl).

And not just that, but she was a total BABE then:




Kazan even did a pictorial in Playboy in 1971 (no pics, go Google it yourself, it's easy to find), which led to another neat thing about her.

After seeing her Playboy pics, famed comic book author Jack Kirby based the design of his new comic book heroine Big Barda (from the Mister Miracle comic book) on her.