Linda Lavin, a Tony Award-winning stage actress who became a working-class icon as a paper hat-wearing waitress on the television sitcom Aliceis dead She was 87.
Lavin died in Los Angeles on Sunday of complications from recently diagnosed 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 cast in a new CBS sitcom based on Alice doesn’t live here anymorethe Martin Scorsese-directed film that earned Ellen Burstyn an Oscar for playing the titular waitress.
The title was shortened to Alice and Lavin became a role model for working mothers like Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother of a 12-year-old son who worked at a bar outside Phoenix. The show, with Lavin singing the theme song There’s a new girl in townwas developed from 1976 to 1985.
The show turned “Kiss my grits” into a catchphrase and 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 mainstream hit All in the Family on Sunday evenings in October 1977. It was among the top 10 primetime series in four of the next five seasons. Variety magazine listed it among the best workplace comedies of all time.
Lavin soon won a Tony for Best Actress in a Play for Neil Simon’s Bound Broadway in 1987, which also won her Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Helen Hayes awards.
“She was an extraordinary performer with a generous heart,” the union Actors Equity said in X. The group in 2023 honored her with the Richard Seff Award – given to veteran performers in supporting roles – for her work on Noah Diaz. You will get sick.
She was only working this month to promote a new Netflix series in which she appears. No good deedand filming an upcoming Hulu series, Mid-century modernaccording to Deadline, which first reported her death. She also appeared in 2024 as a guest star on Elsbethspinoff i The Good Wife.
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 performance ensembles.
Iconic producer and director Hal Prince gave Lavigne her first big break while directing the Broadway musical It’s a Bird … It’s an Airplane … It’s Superman. She went on to earn a Tony nomination in Simon’s The last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1969 before winning 18 years later for another Simon show, Bound Broadway.
In the mid-1970s, Lavin moved to Los Angeles. She had a recurring role in Barney Miller and in 1976 was cast in a new CBS sitcom based on Ellen Burstyn’s Oscar-winning comedy-drama Waitress, Alice doesn’t live here anymore.
On Broadway, Lavin later starred in the Paul Rudnick comedy The New Centurythere was a concert show called Songs and stories of a one-time waitress and earned a Tony nomination in Donald Margulies Collected stories.
“A star in every medium, but a pure theatrical genius. Wildly funny, deeply emotional, and audiences adored her. She never disappointed: I’ve worked with her, and just watching her rehearse and build a show was an education and the greatest joy.” Rudnick wrote in X.
RIP Linda Lavin irreplaceable. A star in any medium, but pure theatrical genius. Very funny, deeply moving and the audience loved it. She never disappointed: I worked with her, and just watching her rehearse and build a show was an education and the biggest… pic.twitter.com/oI6OkkWgpK
AP’s Michael Kuchwara gave Lavin a furious Collected storieswriting that she “gives one of those full, nuanced performances, capturing the woman’s intellectual energy, her sense of humor, and her growing physical vulnerability with startling fidelity. And Lavin’s sense of timing is superb, whether making a joke or harshly dividing the work of her protégé”.
Lavin received new attention in her 70s, earning a Tony nomination for Nicky Silver’s Lyon. She also played in Other desert cities and a revival of foolishness before they moved to Broadway.
AP again raved about Lavin in the Lyoncalling her “an absolute wonder to watch as Rita Lyons, an annoyance of a mother with a collection of strong beliefs and eye rolls, a suffocating matriarch who keeps everyone at arm’s length.”
She also appeared in the film POWER with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, and released her first CD, The possibilities. She played Jennifer Lopez’s grandmother Backup plan.
When asked for guidance from future actors, Lavin emphasized one thing. “I say what happened to me was that work begets 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 automobile garage into the 50-seat Red Barn Studio Theater in Wilmington, North Carolina. It was opened in 2007 and their products include Doubt by John Patrick Shanley, Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet, The 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 Sean saves the worldstarring Will & Grace’s Sean Hayes, a show that ran for one season. Lavin also made appearances on midwife AND 9 JKL.
