Sarah Jessica Parker Speaks out on ‘Sex and the City’ Co-Star Lynn Cohen’s Death

Sex and the City actress Lynn Cohen died on Friday, and one of her co-stars, Sarah Jessica Parker, is speaking out about the loss. Cohen, who was 86 at the time of her death, played the beloved character of Magda on the HBO series and its two theatrical films. Parker apparently had deep admiration for the actress and how she played the role, which was a housekeeper and nanny for Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon). Parker posted a picture of the actress along with a sweet message praising her “talent, grace, (and) inspiration.”

Many joined Parker in mourning the death of Cohen, who also appeared in Law & Order and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Some were established faces in the entertainment industry and others were simply Sex and the City fans.

“Nooooooooo!!!! I love Lynn Cohen!!! She did St. Louis proud…. RIP,” Bravo personality Andy Cohen wrote.

“Will always cherish those moments between Miranda and Magda where no words were said but a look between them showed that they truly understood one another,” one fan wrote. “Timeless memories of this very talented lady. Sleep sweetly.”

“She was a amazing actress. I feel like she rivaled Bea Arthur in the best stare down. RIP” another fan wrote.

“Loved her character and relationship with Miranda. So well played. RIP,” a third wrote.

Sex and the City fans loved Magda, and that was an admiration shared by Cohen.

“It showed a woman of a different age who was smart as the devil, very bossy, and also understood sexuality, and they needed that,” Cohen said of the character. “It enlarged the canvas on which they were working, that they would not have a typical old lady molding away in some retirement home somewhere, but a woman who worked, and didn’t suffer fools.”

On the series as a whole, she later added, “The influence of the whole series was enormous. If you went to a bar, you saw people dressed like that. I’ve been all over this country, and women who were in their 90s would come up and say, “All my life we never mentioned the word sex, and now I would never ever miss one episode of the reruns.” And they see them again and again. It still happens, because it changed the image of women in a very positive way. Their intelligence and their bonding with each other, not just at each other’s throats.

“I was in Italy recently and I was in a glass factory looking around, and all of a sudden I hear from way across the room [does Italian accent], ‘Magda! It’s Magda!’ Every country I’ve been in. I still can’t go anywhere without having somebody hug me.”

However, she did note one thing that she always wanted the series to explore: Magda having a boyfriend.

“They did an episode that was never shown in which I had a promising boyfriend,” she said. “They got me a fancy black dress, they got me to go to a bar with him, but it turned out the [actor] was not using any of the lines in the scene, just taking it in a totally different direction. They decided that would not work and of course it wouldn’t have. I was waiting! Where was my boyfriend?”

No other core members of the Sex and the City cast have commented on Cohen’s death as of press time.

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