Broadway Actress and Sitcom Star Dies at Age 87
Linda Lavin, a Tony Award-winning stage actor who became a working class icon as a paper-hat wearing waitress on the TV sitcom “Alice,” has died. She was 87.
Lavin died in Los Angeles on Sunday of complications from recently discovered lung cancer, her representative, Bill Veloric, told the Associated Press in an email.
A success on Broadway, Lavin tried her luck in Hollywood in the mid-1970s. She was chosen to star in a new CBS sitcom based on “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” the Martin Scorsese-directed film.
The title was shortened to “Alice,” and Lavin become a role model for working moms as Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother with a 12-year-old son working in a roadside diner outside Phoenix. The show, with Lavin singing the theme song “There’s a New Girl in Town,” ran from 1976 to 1985.
The show turned “Kiss my grits” into a catchphrase and co-starred Polly Holliday as waitress Flo and Vic Tayback as the gruff owner and head chef of Mel’s Diner.
The series bounced around the CBS schedule during its first two seasons but became a hit leading into “All in the Family” on Sunday nights in October 1977. It was among primetime’s top 10 series in four of the next five seasons. Variety magazine listed it among the all-time best workplace comedies.
She was working as recently as this month, promoting a new Netflix series in which she appears, “No Good Deed,” and filming a forthcoming Hulu series, “Mid-Century Modern,” according to Deadline, which first reported her death.
Lavin grew up in Portland, Maine, and moved to New York City after graduating from the College of William and Mary. She sang in nightclubs and in ensembles of shows.
Iconic producer and director Hal Prince gave Lavin her first big break while directing the Broadway musical “It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman.” She went on to earn a Tony nomination in Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” in 1969 before winning 18 years later for another Simon play, “Broadway Bound.”
Back on Broadway, Lavin later starred in Paul Rudnick’s comedy “The New Century,” had a concert show called “Songs & Confessions of a One-Time Waitress,” and earned a Tony nomination in Donald Margulies’ “Collected Stories.”
“A star in every medium, but pure theatrical genius. Blissfully funny, deeply emotional, and audiences adored her. She never disappointed: I worked with her, and just watching her rehearse and build a performance was an education and the greatest joy,” Rudnick wrote on X.
RIP the irreplaceable Linda Lavin. A star in every medium, but pure theatrical genius. Blissfully funny, deeply emotional, and audiences adored her. She never disappointed: I worked with her, and just watching her rehearse and build a performance was an education and the greatest… pic.twitter.com/oI6OkkWgpK
— Paul Rudnick (@PaulRudnickNY) December 30, 2024
When asked for guidance from up-and-coming actors, Lavin stressed one thing. “I say that what happened for me was that work brings work. As long as it wasn’t morally reprehensible to me, I did it,” she told the AP in 2011.
She and Steve Bakunas, an artist, musician, and her third husband, converted an old automotive garage into the 50-seat Red Barn Studio Theatre in Wilmington, North Carolina.
It opened in 2007 and their productions include “Doubt” by John Patrick Shanley, “Glengarry Glen Ross” by David Mamet, “Rabbit Hole” by David Lindsay-Abaire, and “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife” by Charles Busch, in which Lavin also starred on Broadway, earning a Tony nomination.
She returned to TV in 2013 in “Sean Saves the World,” which lasted a season. Lavin also made appearances on “Mom” and “9JKL.”
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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