Linda Lavin, star of sitcom “Alice” and Tony Award winner, dies at 87 | Global News Avenue

Linda Lavin, the Tony Award-winning stage actress who became a working-class icon as a paper-hat-wearing waitress in the TV sitcom “Alice,” has died. She is 87 years old.

LaVine died unexpectedly on Sunday due to complications from recently discovered lung cancer, Michael Gallardo, LaVine’s representative, told CBS News in an email.

After his success on Broadway, Lavin headed to Hollywood to try his luck in Hollywood in the mid-1970s. She has been cast to star in a new CBS sitcom based on the Martin Scorsese film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, for which Ellen Burstyn won an Oscar for playing the waitress.

The film’s title is shortened to “Alice,” and Lavin becomes a role model for working mothers as Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother with a 12-year-old son living outside Phoenix. Work in a roadside restaurant. The show aired from 1976 to 1985, with Raven singing the theme song “There’s a New Girl in Town.”

The show that turned “kiss my grits” into a catchphrase stars Polly Holliday as waitress Flo and Vic Tayback as Mel’s (Mel’s Diner) The gruff owner and chef.

The show was a recurring fixture on the CBS schedule for the first two seasons, but became a hit with “All in the Family,” which aired on Sunday nights in October 1977. In four of the next five seasons, the show ranked among the top ten primetime dramas. Variety magazine named it one of the best workplace comedies of all time.

Laverne quickly won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in Neil Simon’s play Broadway Bound in 1987.

This month she was promoting a new Netflix series, “No Good Deed,” in which she stars, and filming the upcoming Hulu series “Mid-Century Modern,” according to Deadline, which first reported the news of her death.

Raven 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 ensemble shows.

Iconic producer and director Hal Prince gave LaVine the spark of his life while directing the Broadway musical It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…This is Superman The first big breakthrough. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1969 for Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers,” and 18 years later won a Tony Award for another of Simon’s plays, “Broadway.”

In the mid-1970s, LaVine moved to Los Angeles. She had a recurring role on “Barney Miller” and in 1976 was chosen to star in “Alice.”

Returning to Broadway, Laverne starred in Paul Rudnick’s comedy “A New Age,” presented a concert program titled “Songs and Confessions of a Disposable Waitress,” and starred as Donald Margulies ’s Collected Stories was nominated for a Tony Award.

The Associated Press’s Michael Kuchwara praised Lavin in Selected Stories, writing that she “gives a complete and nuanced performance that captures this story with stunning fidelity.” The woman’s intellectual vitality, her wry sense of humor, and her growing physical frailty.” Whether telling a joke or scathingly dissecting her protégé’s work, the sense of timing is remarkable. ”

In her 70s, LaVine returned to attention, earning a Tony Award nomination for Nicky Silver’s “The Lyons.” She also starred in “Other Desert Cities” and a revival of “Follies” before moving to Broadway.

The Associated Press once again raved about LaVine in “The Lyons,” saying she “is an absolute marvel as Rita Lyons, a mother with unwavering conviction and eye-rolls, a woman who is both suffocating and makes everyone laugh. The matriarch who is personally nervous.” length. ”

She also appeared in the film “Wanderlust” with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd and released her first CD “Possibilities”. She plays Jennifer Lopez’s grandmother in “The Backup Plan.”

When asked about mentorship for budding actresses, LaVine emphasized one thing. “I said, what happened to me was that work led to work. As long as I wasn’t morally reprehensible, I did it,” she told The Associated Press in 2011.

She and artist, musician and third husband Steve Bakunas transformed an old car garage into the 50-seat Red Barn Studio Theater in Wilmington, North Carolina.

The theater opened in 2007 and their productions include John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, David Lindsay A. “The Rabbit Hole” by David Lindsay-Abaire and “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife” by Charles Busch Wife), in which Lavine also starred on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony Award.

In 2013, she returned to television on Sean Saves the World, starring Will & Grace’s Sean Hayes, which ran for one season. Lavin has also appeared in “Mom” and “9JKL.”