With 20-34 million viewers Tuesday nights on ABC prime time, and more in worldwide syndication, Best Actress nominee for AFI at Method Fest and People’s Choice Award winner Lydia Cornell is best known for her starring role on the hit ABC series “Too Close for Comfort” as Emmy legend Ted Knight’s daughter ‘Sara’. More recently seen on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, Variety’s Power of Comedy, and the Kelsey Grammer Comedy Hour, she has over 200 shows and films in 27 countries to her credit.
She won Best Director Honors at the Los Angeles Movie Awards and Best Comedy Film at Paramount Studios UIFF (United International Film Festival) for directing the SAG film “It’s My Decision” in 2016. She wrote and directed the acclaimed stage show “Relationshop;” wrote “Venus Conspiracy” and is set to direct “The Awesome Adventures of Frankie Stargazer.”
A women and children’s advocate whose great-great grandmother was Harriet Beecher Stowe, she has been Invited to contribute her writings to the International Museum of Peace, which houses letters from Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mother Teresa, Maya Angelou & Sir Edmund Hillary. Cornell received the Southern California Motion Picture Council’s Golden Halo Lifetime Achievement Award, and the first Elizabeth Montgomery Humanitarian Award (2018.) One of TV’s most popular sex symbols, she is now a writer, director, mother, comedienne, talk show host, women and children’s advocate, teen mentor and inspirational public speaker. Sober since September 11, 1994, she is an addiction and recovery expert and podcast host (“Godshots.”) Her Stitcher award-winning podcast on iTunes started in 2013. Her articles have appeared in People, US, Herald de Paris; A&E Biography, Huffington Post, Editor & Publisher, Macon Daily, and Lone Star Icon.
She is the author of the book series based on her US Trademark “Godshots,” as well as two upcoming books.
Cornell went through a frightening incident with a man who moved into her home, posing as a disabled war hero. He sued Kelsey Grammer, falsely using Lydia Cornell’s name to get publicity. Cornell never sued Kelsey Grammer, though this was falsely reported in the tabloids and various news outlets.
Cornell is creating a new TV show, a comedy series for 2020. Talks for a reboot of “Too Close for Comfort” are in the works with the original producers of the show (D.L. Taffner, LTD.) based on a treatment Cornell wrote. She teaches Acting and Directing for Screenwriters at LMU School of Film and Television 2019-2020
