Lenka O'Connor

Lenka O'Connor
Lenka Peterson (Lenka Isacson, maiden name) (Lenka O'Connor, married name).
Actor, author, teacher and mentor and inspiration to so many, Lenka Peterson has died. She was 95. She died peacefully in her sleep in her home in Connecticut, in the early morning hours of Friday, September 24, 2021.
A professional actor for over 70 years, Peterson starred in a dozen Broadway productions including QUILTERS, for which she received a Tony nomination, NUTS, GIRLS OF SUMMER, THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, THE GRASS HARP, and Pulitzer Prize winners LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL, and ALL THE WAY HOME. She appeared in multiple Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions throughout the US.
Lenka made her film debut in 1950 in Elia Kazan's PANIC IN THE STREETS. Her other films include BLACK LIKE ME, TAKE CARE OF MY LITTLE GIRL, THE PHOENIX CITY STORY, HOMER, LIFEGUARD, JEFFREY, CHEATERS, ALL THE KINGS MEN, and DRAGNET as the sprightly, motorcycle riding Granny Mundy.
She has appeared in over one thousand television films and series including Pulitzer Prize Playhouse and Hallmark Hall of Fame, and in daytime dramas including SEARCH FOR TOMORROW, ANOTHER WORLD, and YOUNG DOCTOR MALONE.
Lenka directed and taught acting for five years at the Metropolitan Opera Studio. She was a charter member of The Actors Studio and studied with Lee Strasberg, Arthur Penn, and Robert Lewis. Of her early days there, she said, "We felt like the Actors Studio was a place where we were free, where we could say anything and do anything and share anything and not have to worry that it's going to affect us financially."
While raising her five children in New Rochelle, NY, Lenka shuttled from home to the studio for a live daytime show, back home for dinner with the kids, then back to Manhattan for the 8:00 curtain of her play. When Lenka noticed that that her children's elementary school had only one after school activity, she started a dramatics club. Three hundred students showed up for the first meeting.
The Dramatics Club grew into The Westchester Young Actor's Theater. The young people of WYAT created shows and performed plays for a decade. Lenka continued her work with children in Connecticut when she and her husband, Dan, moved there in 1979.
The years of work with children and teenagers is captured in her book, "KIDS TAKE THE STAGE: Helping Young People Discover the Creative Outlet of Theater."
Lenka directed young people's theater in Connecticut, while continuing to act in stage and film, for the next 40 years. She has described the experience of teaching and guiding children and teenagers through the art form of theater to be equally as fulfilling as her professional work as an actor.
Frequent comments from former students, now grown, include: "She was to so many of us a second mother with endless amounts of love, compassion, praise, and encouragement." "Lenka was an amazing, warm woman and gave so much of herself to all that were lucky enough to have known her." "She was a gift to this world."
Lenka Isacson was born in Omaha, Nebraska on October 16, 1925, the daughter of Dr.Sven Isacson, who emigrated from Sweden and Lenke Lienweber, who emigrated from Hungary. She developed a passion for theatre early and, after attending the University of Iowa, she travelled oversees with the USO to entertain the WWII troops in Japan and Philippines. After the war, Lenka settled in New York City and pursued her career in theatre. In 1948 she married Daniel P O'Connor and they eventually settled into a home in New Rochelle, NY. Dan ventured into news, and was executive producer of NBC News Documentaries through the 1980s. They raised their five children in New Rochelle, NY, then built a house in Roxbury, CT, where their children and grandchildren and cousins and dear friends have spent many happy holidays and visits.
To have Lenka as your mother meant to have a mom who read to you during long family drives on cross-country vacations, who introduced you to the joys of swimming, of singing, and games, to the sweet taste of Swedish pancakes, the richness of paprikash and the crackle of Krishlika, the excitement of possibility, the delight and rewards of curiosity, and the enduring value of compassion.
Even to the day she died, she never ceased to find the joy in every moment.
She was our heartbeat.
Lenka is preceded by her husband, Daniel O'Connor, and her brother, Dr. Peter Isacson. She is survived by her children Kevin, Brian, Darren, Glynnis, and Sean, and by her daughters-in-law Eileen O'Connor and Jolene O'Connor, sons-in-law Douglas Stern and Josh Yu, and her grandchildren, Daniel Sven O'Connor, Lindsay Stern, Hana Stern, and Jadie O'Connor, as well as her step-grandchildren, Tanya Goff, Tasha Manternach, and Niko O'Connor, and step great grandchildren, Echo, Aleia, and Nolan Goff, Aidan, Kyle, Una and Zachary Manternach, and great grandchildren Joseph Daniel, David Francis, Mary Faustina, and Luisa Marie O'Connor.
Arrangements by the Lillis Funeral Home, 58 Bridge Street, New Milford, CT.