Life and career
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Lyman was born on April 18, 1947, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, [2] to Violet E. (née Brightwell) and Hector H. Lyman, who was a stockbroker. She is Protestant. [3] Jill Larson, who succeeded Lyman in the role of Opal on All My Children, and she attended Washburn High School in Minneapolis. She debuted on her first soap opera, A World Apart , as flower child Julie Stark in 1971. Several years later, Dorothy appeared as Elly Jo Jamison, an evil relation of wealthy Orin Hillyer's, (1972-1973) on The Edge of Night , and as architect Gwen Parrish Frame (1976–1980, 1989) on Another World .
Lyman's producing and directing debut came in 1981 with A Couple White Chicks Sitting Around Talking, an off-Broadway [4] comedy. [4]
Her most notable soap opera role, though, was on All My Children as Opal Sue Gardner (1981-1983), for which she received two Emmy Awards [5] —as Outstanding Actress in a Supporting Role in a Daytime Drama Series in 1982 and for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series in 1983. Lyman performed characters on other soap operas including Rebecca Whitmore (1990–1991) on Generations , and Bonnie Roberts (1991–1992) on The Bold and the Beautiful .
In 1983, Lyman became well known for her role as Naomi Harper on the sitcom Mama's Family , a role she played for the full six seasons. In an appearance on Vicki Lawrence's talk show Vicki!, Lyman noted that she continued to perform on All My Children concurrently with the beginning of Mama's Family's production, flying back and forth each week between New York City and Los Angeles. While the commute was brutal, she remembered it fondly, referring to that stage of her career as "All My Paychecks".
Lyman's Broadway credits include portraying Jan Morrison in Dancing in the End Zone (1985). [2] During this time, Lyman appeared in the Tales from the Darkside television series in the "In the Cards" episode (1985). She also played Ralphie's mother in Jean Shepherd's Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss from 1988, appeared in ALF as Maura Norris in the episode "Tequila" (1988), and in Hunter as Sgt. Carol James Meyers in the episode "The Pit" (1989).
When Mama's Family ended its run in 1990, Lyman went behind the camera, producing and directing 75 episodes of The Nanny (all episodes of the third and fourth seasons, and all but four episodes of the fifth), even making a special guest appearance on the Fran Drescher sitcom. Lyman also had a recurring role on Bob , Bob Newhart's third series.
On the big screen, she made a cameo appearance in I Love Trouble , a film starring Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts. She made another cameo appearance in the 2001 film Blow starring Johnny Depp. She was seen in the 2006 films World Trade Center and The Departed .
In 2007, Lyman guest-starred in the third season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica as Starbuck's mother. She made a guest appearance on Reba , playing the titular character's mother. She appeared in The Blacklist in the season-six episode "The Pawnbrokers". [6]
Lyman performed My Kitchen Wars in Hollywood and New York as a one-woman show based on the book by Betty Fussell. [7] She wrote and performed in A Rage in Tenure at the Geo Theater in Hollywood in 1995. [5]
In 2010, Lyman produced, directed, and served as cinematographer on the feature-length documentary, Janet's Class. a film whose titular subject, veteran stage and screen character actress/acting teacher Janet Sarno, had appeared previously in Split Ends, Lyman's feature film directorial debut. Summarized by Lyman as simply "a film about aging" and prompted, at least in part, by problems the issue posed to her personally, her new film was conceived with two principal goals in mind: to help the audience—and herself—come to grips with the reality of aging while, at the same time, offering insight into what exactly goes into becoming a capable actor. Scored by Grammy-winning arranger Bill Cunliffe, [8] [9] and featuring Sarno and her church basement disciples ranging in age from 50 to 92, the film had, as of December 2025, failed to find a commercial distributor, although it did have at least one public screening, in February 2011 at the Andes Hotel in the city of Andes in upstate New York, [8] where Lyman resided from 2001 through 2018. [10]
