Linda Lavin, Tony Award-winning stage actress who became a working-class icon as a paper-hat waitress on a television series Alicedied. She was 87 years old.
Lavin died Sunday in Los Angeles of complications from recently diagnosed lung cancer, her representative Bill Veloric told The Associated Press in an email.
Lavin, who found success on Broadway, tried her luck in Hollywood in the mid-1970s. She was tapped to star in a new CBS comedy series based on: Alice doesn't live here anymorea film directed by Martin Scorsese that brought Ellen Burstyn an Oscar for her role as the titular waitress.
The title was shortened to Alice and Lavin became role models for working moms as Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother with a 12-year-old son who works at a roadside restaurant outside Phoenix. A show where Lavin sings the theme song There's a new girl in townran from 1976 to 1985.
The show turned “Kiss my Grits” into a slogan, with Polly Holliday as waitress Flo and Vic Tayback as the gruff owner and chef of Mel's Diner. The series bounced around the CBS schedule for its first two seasons, but became a hit Everything in the Family on Sunday evenings in October 1977. It was one of the top 10 most popular primetime series in four of the next five seasons. Variety magazine listed it as one of the best workplace comedies of all time.
Lavin soon won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Neil Simon Play Related to Broadway in 1987, for which she also received Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Helen Hayes awards.
“She was a wonderful actress with a generous heart,” Actors Equity said on the show. In 2023, the group honored her with the Richard Seff Award, given to veteran supporting actors, for her role in Noah Diaz's film You will be sick.
Just this month, she worked to promote a new Netflix series in which she stars: No good deedand filming the upcoming Hulu series, Mid-century modern, by datewho was the first to report her death. She also appeared in 2024 as a guest star in Elsbethspinoff Good Wife.
Lavin grew up in Portland, Maine, and moved to New York after graduating from the College of William and Mary. She sang in nightclubs and performance groups.
Iconic producer and director Hal Prince gave Lavin his first big break while directing a Broadway musical It's a bird… It's a plane… It's Superman. She then earned a Tony nomination for Simon's The last of Red Hot's lovers in 1969, and 18 years later he won another Simon play, Related to Broadway.
In the mid-1970s, Lavin moved to Los Angeles. She had a recurring role Barney Miller and in 1976 he was selected to star in a new CBS comedy series based on Ellen Burstyn's Oscar-winning waitressing comedy-drama, Alice doesn't live here anymore.
Back on Broadway, Lavin later starred in a Paul Rudnick comedy A new centuryhad a concert titled Songs and confessions of a one-time waitress and earned a Tony nomination for Donald Margulies Collected stories.
“A star in every medium, but a pure theatrical genius. Blissfully funny, full of emotion, and the audience loved it. She never disappointed me: I worked with her and just watching her rehearse and create a performance was a learning experience and the greatest joy.” Rudnick wrote on X.
RIP the irreplaceable Linda Lavin. A star in every medium, but a pure theatrical genius. Blissfully funny, full of emotion, and the audience loved it. She never disappointed me: I worked with her and just watching her rehearse and create a performance was a real learning experience for me and the greatest… pic.twitter.com/oI6OkkWgpK
AP's Michael Kuchwara raved about Lavin Collected storieswriting that she “gives one of those complete, nuanced performances, capturing the woman's intellectual vigor, wry sense of humor, and growing physical weakness with astonishing fidelity.” Lavin has impeccable timing, whether he's cracking a joke or sharply analyzing a situation. the work of her protégé.”
Lavin gained attention again in her 70s and earned a Tony nomination for Nicky Silver Lyons. She also starred in Other desert cities and rebirth Madness before they moved to Broadway.
The AP raved about Lavin again Lyonscalling her “an absolute marvel as Rita Lyons, a curmudgeonly mother with plenty of unwavering convictions and eye-rolling, a matriarch who both smothers and holds everyone at arm's length.”
She also appeared in the film Wanderlust with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd and released her first CD, Possibilities. She played Jennifer Lopez's grandmother Backup plan.
When asked for guidance by emerging actors, Lavin emphasized one thing. “I say what happened to me is that work brings work. As long as it wasn't morally objectionable 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 car garage into the 50-seat Red Barn Studio Theater in Wilmington, North Carolina. It opened in 2007 and its productions include Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet, Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire i A story about an allergist's wife Charles Busch, in which Lavin also starred on Broadway, earning a Tony nomination.
She returned to television in 2013 Sean saves the worldin the main role Will and Grace Sean Hayes, a show that lasted a season. Lavin also appeared on Mother AND 9JKL.