Linda Lavin, Tony-winning Broadway actor who starred in the landmark sitcom 'Alice,' dies at 87

Linda Lavin arrives at the 33rd annual Producers Guild Awards on March 19, 2022, at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

NEW YORK — 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 that won Ellen Burstyn an Oscar for playing the title waitress.

The title was shortened to "Alice" and Lavin became 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.

Lavin soon went on to win a Tony for best actress in a play for Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound" in 1987, which also garnered her Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Helen Hayes awards.

"She was a tremendous performer with a generous heart," the union Actors Equity said on X. The group in 2023 honored her with the Richard Seff Award -- given to veteran performers in supporting roles -- for her work in Noah Diaz's "You Will Get Sick."

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. She also appeared in 2024 as a guest star in "Elsbeth," the spinoff 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 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."

In the mid 1970s, Lavin moved to Los Angeles. She had a recurring role on "Barney Miller" and in 1976 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 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.

Michael Kuchwara of the AP gave Lavin a rave in "Collected Stories," writing that she "gives one of those complete, nuanced performances, capturing the woman's intellectual vigor, her wry sense of humor and her increasing physical frailty with astonishing fidelity. And Lavin's sense of timing is superb, whether delivering a joke or acerbically dissecting the work of her protegee."

Lavin basked in a burst of renewed attention in her 70s, earning a Tony nomination for Nicky Silver's "The Lyons." She also starred in "Other Desert Cities" and a revival of "Follies" before they transferred to Broadway.

The AP again raved about Lavin in "The Lyons," calling her "an absolute wonder to behold as Rita Lyons, a nag of a mother with a collection of firm beliefs and eye rolls, a matriarch who is both suffocating and keeping 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 in "The Back-Up Plan."

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," starring "Will & Grace's" Sean Hayes, a show which lasted a season. Lavin also made appearances on "Mom" and "9JKL."

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AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton contributed from Los Angeles.