The actress ironically won for her role as a cancer patient on Showtime's 'The Big C' while her father lost to lung cancer a day before.
- January 17, 2011
AceShowbiz -
Sunday, January 16 could have been Laura Linney's best day but the actress is grieving her father's death instead. One day before the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards where Laura won Best Actress in TV Comedy, 80-year-old Romulus Linney died in his Germantown, New York home after a long battle of lung cancer.
Romulus is a prolific playwright who had written more than 30 plays including "A Lesson Before Dying" which was performed Off-Broadway in September 2000. Most of his stories are set in Appalachia because he's familiar with it while growing up in the South. Beside writing, Romulus is also a professor who taught at Columbia and Princeton universities, Hunter College and The New School.
Before his death, Romulus had been working on a novel and had completed the libretto for an opera based on one of his plays, The Associated Press said. Laura Callanan, who is Romulus' third wife and Laura Linney's step-mother, said the funeral would be private.
"The Big C" star skipped the Golden Globes to be with her family. Though Romulus just missed seeing his daughter taking home Best TV Comedy Actress, he was there when she claimed her first Golden Globe in 2008 for "John Adams".
