Lynn Loring dead at 80: Soap actress turned producer and leading television executive passes away

Lynn Loring, soap actress turned producer and leading television executive, has passed away at the age of 80. She started acting in soaps as a child and was only seven years old when she joined the CBS soap opera Search for Tomorrow in 1951. Lynn Loring’s son Chris Thinnes told The Hollywood Reporter that “Loring died Dec. 23 at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center after a series of chronic illnesses. Her family chose not to make public her death until now. “

Lynn Loring also starred in the 1962-63 CBS/Desilu sitcom Fair Exchange as well as  movies such as Splendor in the Grass and the 1962 film Pressure Point. Lynn Loring was also in the 1969 movie Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, her then-husband Roy Thinnes was also in the film. 

Lynn Loring was born on July 14, 1943 in Manhattan, New York, her father Charles was a shipyard owner in New York and her mother, Barbara Loring was a publicist. Before she began acting, Lynn Loring was a child model at the age of 3 and also starred in commercials.

Although she left the world of movies to raise a family in 1976, Lynn Loring returned as a casting director rather than an actress on NBC’s The Last Ride of The Dalton Gang. Lynn Loring then joined Aaron Spelling, famed for the TV series Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat, Hart to Hart, Dynasty and Beverly Hills 90210 that starred Shannen Doherty. 

Lynn Loring started as producer at Aaron Spelling Productions and worked on such telefilms as The Best Little Girl in the World, which was about anorexia and then became a vice president of development and talent, motion pictures and television. Lynn Loring’s career went from strength to strength and she became a producer on the 1983 movie Mr Mom (starring Michael Keaton) that grossed more than $120 million on a comparatively modest $5.5 million budget.

When she became a development executive at MGM-UA in 1985, according to Carroll O’Connor who starred in the TV series ‘In the Heart of the Night,’ it was Lynn Loring’s idea to turn the Oscar winning movie into a TV series.  Lynn Loring went on to become one of the highest-ranking female executives in Hollywood at the time when she was named president of the division at MGM-UA. In 1990, Lynn Loring revealed to the Los Angeles Times that “ I’m not looking to be a spokesperson for women, but I find what I say matters, and that excites me.”