Knots Landing star Lar Park Lincoln, who featured unforgettably as the scheming femme fatale Linda Fairgate, has died aged 63.
Shortly after she began appearing on the soap opera in 1987, Lincoln also joined one of the most beloved horror franchises in the genre.Â
She acted in the 1988 film Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood, playing a telekinetic woman who faces off against the villainous Jason Voorhees.
Throughout her lengthy career, she made guest appearances on well-known TV programs such as Murder, She Wrote, and was a regular presence on the shopping network QVC.
Despite her previous struggles with breast cancer, including enduring 17 surgeries within a five-year period, the specific cause of her death has not been disclosed.
Her passing was announced Thursday by the Actors Audition Studios, a company she founded in her hometown of Dallas, Texas.
Announcing her passing on Facebook, the company mentioned that her ‘family is seeking privacy’ and suggested that instead of sending flowers, contributions could be made to The SAG-AFTRA Foundation or The Entertainment Community Fund.
Born Laurie Jill Park to a military family in Dallas, she decided by the third grade that she wanted to act, she told the website Icon Vs. Icon.Â
She got her start as a model but ‘always had my eye on acting,’ featuring in commercials and taking classes to hone her skills in her dream profession.
Her big break came with the 1985 TV movie Children Of The Night, a movie about the founder of the real-life Los Angeles organization of the same name, which is dedicated to rescuing underage prostitutes and helping them restart their lives.Â
‘I was playing a real girl’s life story. She was a young teenage prostitute,’ Lincoln recalled. ‘That’s where I had to learn, and what has guided me since the very beginning in 1985, that you can’t be an artist if you are judging.’
She then landed her fan favorite role on Knots Landing as Linda Fairgate, the scenery-chewing blonde bombshell, whom she played off and on from 1987 to 1991.
Linda starts off married to Eric Fairgate (Steve Shaw), whom she leaves for his brother Michael Fairgate (Patrick Petersen), only to get board of him and stray with a string of men including her boss Greg Sumner (William Devane).
Eventually, the character’s machinations catch up to her, and she is murdered by the man with whom she has her last explosive affair, Brian Johnston (Philip Brown).Â
‘I would guess Linda was popular because she was so rotten and so fun at the same time,’ she told a fan website for the show a few years ago. ‘I studied a few people to become Linda, as she went from the brown hair to the blonde meanie.’
Lincoln remembered when the show’s creator David Jacobs informed her she would be going blonde for the character, telling her: ‘I’m doing this because you look so sweet and everyone will be shocked how you turn out.’Â
After her character was killed off in 1991, she continued to act on TV, guesting on such legendary series as Beverly Hills, 90210 and Murder, She Wrote.
She also worked extensively as an acting coach, founding the Actors Audition Studios in Dallas as a way for her to nurture budding talent.
‘I always loved coaching actors, even when I was a young actor,’ she reflected. ‘I always just felt I could see things from the outside, although directing isn’t something that I’m interested in. A lot of people ask me that and it’s not.’
In 2008 she took her educational pursuits to another level by publishing the book Get Started Not Scammed, offering advice to people starting out in showbiz.
Lincoln continued acting into her last years and has shot multiple movies that have still yet to be released, including the action films Young Bolsheviks and Bad B****.
She was predeceased by her husband Michael Lincoln, whom she was married to for 14 years before he succumbed to cancer in 2015 at the age of just 43.
Lincoln is survived by several family members including her children Piper and Trevor, her siblings Karen and Michael and her grandchildren Audra, Benjamin, Jack and Mia.
