Linney's wife Laura Callanan said the playwright died Saturday at his home in Germantown, N.Y., north of Poughkeepsie. The cause was lung cancer.
Linney, father of actress Laura Linney, wrote more than 30 plays that covered a number of subjects. Some of his works were set in Appalachia, which he was familiar with through his youth growing up in the South. Others were historical dramas, some looking at moments in time like the Nuremberg trials or the Vietnam war and others taken from the lives of public figures like the poet Lord Byron or Frederick II, a king of Prussia.
Linney also had the ability to write the voice of women particularly well, Callanan said.
"When I first saw his plays as a student years ago, walking in you wouldn't know if the playwright was a man or woman," she told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Most of Linney's work appeared in regional theater and off-Broadway, with one play appearing in a Broadway theater.
He also taught at schools including Columbia and Princeton universities, Hunter College and The New School.
Callanan said he had been working on a novel at the time of his death, and had completed the libretto for an opera based on one of his plays.
Linney's first two marriages ended in divorce. He is also survived by another daughter, Susan Linney.
Callanan said the funeral would be private.
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