Dorothy Lyman, a.k.a. the very romantic, touchy-feely Naomi from “Mama’s Family,” is aging gracefully at 76 after having two heartbreaks.
The actress experienced a painful period after she left the place where she’d lived for 17 years.
Dorothy opened up about her life now and the changes she went through after her acting career was “winding down.”
Dorothy Lyman, known as Naomi Oates Harper from “Mama’s Family,” is 76 and appears to be aging gracefully. The actress played a touchy and passionate character on the 1983 show and was married twice before.
Her first husband was John Tillinger, born on June 28, 1938, in Tabriz, Iran. He worked as a director and actor credited for 1963’s “Doctor Who,” 1976’s “The Adams Chronicles,” and 1988’s “Monsters.”
The former couple were married on December 1, 1971, and during their six-year-long marriage, they welcomed two children before divorcing on August 4, 1978.
The actress tied the knot with her second husband, Vincent Malle, on February 8, 1987. Like her first spouse, Malle, born on August 7, 1944, in Châtillon-sur Loire, Loiret, France, also worked in the entertainment industry as a producer. He worked on 1973’s “La Grande Bouffe,” 1985’s “Alamo Bay,” and 1992’s “Damage.”
Lyman and her second husband welcomed one child during their union and divorced on August 12, 2001. Sadly, on November 19, 2011, Malle died from an embolism in Paris, France.
After divorcing her second husband, in 2001, the actress, born April 18, 1947, bought a dairy farm in New York but continued living in Los Angeles. At the same time, her career had started “winding down,” as she wasn’t getting as many parts because she was older.
Two years later, when her youngest child, Jackson Malle, left for college, the star finally relocated from Los Angeles to Delaware County, New York, and became an egg farmer.
With lots of extra time on her hands, the celebrity began writing. She wrote three plays about women who faced new challenges at a certain age. Her work began before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and she continued working on it, amassing six characters for one of the plays.
However, her life on the farm wasn’t meant to be permanent because the “Mama’s Family” star had a revelation that led her to move. It all had much to do with her commitment to family and not wanting to miss out anymore.
Why Did Dorothy Leave Her Farm?
Working on her plays caused Lyman to have the bravery to face more significant challenges in her life. Seeing as her children and grandchildren were living far away from her, she relocated from New York to Connecticut to one of her son’s small farms to be closer to them.
When Sebastian Tillinger welcomed his child a few years before her relocation, she was too far from them, and that was the case when her daughter, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, had her offspring. The actress felt she was missing out on too much and using Facebook to stay clued up wasn’t her thing.
One of her plays was about a woman who lived on a farm and decided to leave that life after losing her husband. The mother of three wrote the play to make herself “feel better” about leaving the home she’d created upstate.
Sebastian owned a 36-acre Connecticut farm where his mother lived in the guest house. The sacrifice was worth it—although it was a painful experience—because Lyman got to see her granddaughter daily, with her saying:
“So writing this play really helped me come to terms with making a big change in my own life.”
Her play, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” was basically about her having children who were far and how she’d resisted moving from her dairy farm. The star revealed that her children were the ones who asked her to move closer because she lived three hours away from them.
Lyman’s children never visited, and she always went to them. The actress said she took her horses and hens to live on her son’s property, but when she struggled with grief as she was selling her farm in 2017, writing the play helped her cope.
The mother of three had lived on her farm for 17 years and built a solid life and close friendships. The play was written in an effort for her to get over her loss, but in the end, she survived the move and thrived.
How Does Dorothy Look Now & What Does She Do?
In October 2021, Lyman showed her Instagram followers how she was thriving in her new surroundings when she wasn’t writing plays. She shared a picture of her riding her Icelandic mare during the fall at the Steeprock Nature Preserve in Washington, Connecticut.
Taking horse rides seemed to be a pastime that she enjoyed, as seen in her April 2022 Instagram post. She revealed in the post that riding her mare was what she did to celebrate her 75th birthday, and in September, she enjoyed walking her horse in a river at the nature preserve.
The grandchild boasted long hair like her doting grandmother, they could’ve been twins!
Lyman has been living a full life filled with adventures and traveling worldwide. In March 2017, she got to visit Guanajuato in Mexico, and that year in October, she wore traditional garb at The Blue Mosque in her first husband’s home country, Iran.
In July 2022, she honored her late second husband by visiting the Chateau de Cheverny in France. The actress also had time to see a sphinx in February 2023 when she visited Cairo in Egypt, where she showed off how she was aging well with her long gray hair.
In November 2019, she uploaded an Instagram photo of her family eating out at the El Coyote restaurant, and she confessed that she missed them already!
The following year, she showed off her oldest granddaughter, who enjoyed making popcorn balls with her for the December holidays. The grandchild boasted long hair like her doting grandmother, they could’ve been twins! For 2022’s Easter holidays, Lyman posed with two of her granddaughters, who also had long hair like the actress.
In April 2021, the actress revealed she also had a grandson by sharing a picture of their dirty boots. It appeared that the pair had spent the day enjoying themselves on Sebastian’s farm, and the room the image was taken in might’ve been part of the star’s guest house.