With her captivating performances in popular television shows, Dorothy Lyman has won the hearts of audiences worldwide. Her versatility, charm, and ability to bring complex characters to life have earned her a loyal fan base.
For me, she will always be ”Naomi Oates Harper”, the character she portrayed on the popular 1983 series Mama’s Family.
This beloved actress is now 76 and aging gracefully after leaving television and going through two marriages.
Through her remarkable career, Dorothy Lyman has left an indelible mark on the hearts of fans and the entertainment world as a whole. With her captivating performances in popular television shows like All My Children and The Guiding Light, she is considered one of the best soap actresses ever.
Lyman’s first husband was John Tillinger, born 1938 in Iran. Tillinger was an actor and director, working on projects such as 1963’s “Doctor Who,” 1976’s “The Adams Chronicles,” and 1988’s “Monsters.”
Lyman and Tillinger were married on December 1, 1971 and had two children in their six-year marriage. The two eventually divorced on August 4, 1978.
Dorothy married again on February 8, 1987 to French producer Vincent Malle. Malle’s credits included 1973’s “La Grande Bouffe,” 1985’s “Alamo Bay,” and 1992’s “Damage.”
The couple had one child and did not divorce until 2001. Malle eventually died of an embolism on November 19, 2011, in Paris, France.
After her second divorce, Lyman decided to purchase a dairy farm in New York. The actress, born in 1947, still lived in Los Angeles at this time, but she found finding acting work challenging at her age.
The former “Mama’s Family” star finally moved to Delaware County, New York, in 2003 after her oldest child left for college. It was there that she became an egg farmer.
With her newfound freetime, the actress turned to writing plays. Her writing centered on female characters facing various challenges related to age. She eventually wrote 3 entire plays.
Lyman continued writing before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing six characters for one play alone.
Her writing helped her begin to contemplate aspects of her own life. The former actress felt too distant from her adult children and her grandchildren, and decided to give up her farm.
She sold the farm and moved to Connecticut, where one of her sons had his own farm. She had already missed being physically present when two of her children had their own children, and she did not want to miss any more.
One of the plays crafted by Lyman centered on a woman who lived on a farm before deciding to leave farming after losing her husband. Writing the play helped Lyman to feel better about leaving her own farm.
Happy with her choice to move nearer to son Sebastian, she was quoted as saying, “So writing this play really helped me come to terms with making a big change in my own life.”
The play, titled “In the Bleak Midwinter,” centered on a character the illustrated the distance Lyman felt from her children and her reluctance to leave her farm. Her children often begged the former star to move closer, as she was 3 hours away or more from them.
Writing the play helped her cope with the selling of her farm in 2017, and she was able to bring some of her animals with her to her son’s property.
Since then, Lyman has state deactivate on social media and has shown fans and loved ones just how gracefully she has aged. In one post, she shared a picture of her riding her Icelandic mare in October 2021 at the Steeprock Nature Preserve in Washington, Connecticut.
She has demonstrated a continuing interest in horses and horseback riding in general, clearly sticking with her passions from her former farm.
Lyman has also traveled quite a bit in the last few years. She honored one of her late husbands by visiting the Chateau de Cheverny in France in 2022.
She visited Cairo, Egypt, and saw the sphynx in February of 2023, showing off her long hair and beautiful face in her Instagram post.
Other than her travels, writing, and love for horses, much of her online presence focuses on her grandchildren. She clearly loves them and loves being closer to them.
I have always love Dorothy Lyman, she is an intelligent and talented person. She survived Hollywood and made it out normal.
The only reason I tuned into AMC was because of Opal. Such a great character that was. It is truly wonderful to see Dorothy Lyman continue to enjoy life. She looks great and her granddaughters are beautiful!
