Linda Lavin, Tony Award-winning stage actress who became a working-class icon as a paper hat with a waitress on the TV sitcom Alicehas died. 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 his luck in Hollywood in the mid-1970s. She was chosen to star in a new CBS sitcom based on him Alice doesn't live here anymorethe Martin Scorsese-directed film that won an Oscar for Ellen Burstyn for playing the titular waitress.
The title was shortened to Alice and Lavin became a role model for working moms like 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 Townwhich 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 in its first two seasons but became a huge hit. All in the Family on Sunday nights in October 1977. It was a top 10 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 Broadway Connection in 1987, which also won Drama Desk, Outside Critics and Helen Hayes awards.
“She was a great actress with a generous heart,” Actors Equity said of X. The group honored her in 2023 with the Richard Seff Award – given to veteran actors in supporting roles – for her their work in Noah Diaz's You will be sick.
She was working as recently as this month promoting the new Netflix series in which she appears, No Good Deedand filming an upcoming Hulu series, Medieval modern, by Datewho first reported her death. She also appeared in 2024 as a guest star in Elizabethspinoff of 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 night clubs and in ensembles of shows.
Iconic producer and director Hal Prince gave Lavin her first big break while directing a Broadway musical. He's a Bird… He's a Plane… He'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 play with Simon, Broadway Connection.
In the mid-1970s, Lavin moved to Los Angeles. She had a recurring role on it Barney Miller and in 1976 he was chosen to star in a new CBS sitcom based on Ellen Burstyn's Oscar-winning waitress comedy drama, Alice doesn't live here anymore.
Back on Broadway, Lavin starred in Paul Rudnick's comedy The New Agethey had a concert called Songs & confessions of a one-time waiter and earned a Tony nomination in Donald Margulies Collected stories.
“A star in every medium, but a true theater genius. She was funny, very emotional, and audiences loved her. She never disappointed: I worked with her, and watching her run and build a show was the greatest education and joy,” Rudnick wrote on X.
RIP the irreplaceable Linda Lavin. A star in all medium, but true theatrical genres. Hilariously funny, very emotional, and audiences loved her. She never disappointed: I worked with her, and just watching her rehearse and put on a show was an education and the best… pic.twitter.com/oI6OkkWgpK
AP's Michael Kuchwara raved about Lavin Collected storieswrites that she “gives one of those complete, breakthrough performances, capturing the woman's intellectual dynamism, her wry sense of humor and her growing physical frailty with remarkable fidelity.” her relative's work.”
Lavin burst into a renewed spotlight in her 70s, earning a Tony nomination for Nicky Silver The Lyons. She was a star too Other Desert Cities and revival of Seagulls before moving to Broadway.
The AP was again complaining about Lavin in The Lyonscalling her “a big surprise to see Rita Lyons, a mother of a mother with a collection of strong beliefs and eye rolls, a matriarch who both suffocates and keeps everyone at arm's length.” “
She also appeared in the film Shaking with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, and released her first CD, Capabilities. She played Jennifer Lopez's grandmother in The Backup Plan.
When asked for guidance from up-and-coming actors, Lavin emphasized one thing. “I'm saying what happened to me was that work begat work. As long as it wasn't morally questionable, 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 and The Story of the Allergist's Wife by Charles Busch, in which Lavin also starred on Broadway, earning a Tony nomination.
She returned to television in 2013 in Sean saves the worldstarry Will & Grace's Sean Hayes, a show that lasted a season. Lavin also appeared on it Mommy and 9JKL.
