Linda Lavin, sitcom star

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

Her representative, Michael Gagliardo, told CBS News in an email that Lavigne died unexpectedly Sunday of complications from lung cancer.

A success on Broadway, Levin tried his luck in Hollywood in the mid-1970s. She was tapped to star in a new CBS sitcom based on the Martin Scorsese-directed film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” which won Ellen Burston an Oscar for playing the title waitress. .

The title was shortened to “Alice” and Lyon became a role model for the working mother, as Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother whose 12-year-old son works at a roadside diner outside Phoenix. The show, in which Levine sang the theme song “There is a New Girl in Town”, ran from 1976 to 1985.

The show turned “kiss my guts” into a catchphrase and starred Polly Holliday as waitress Flo and Vic T. Beck as the gruff owner and head chef of the Mail Diner.

The series bounced around the CBS schedule during its first two seasons, but in October 1977 became a breakthrough hit on “All in the Family” on Sunday nights. It was among the top 10 series in primetime for four of the next five seasons. Variety magazine named it one of the best workplace comedies.

Lyon soon won a Tony for Best Actress in a play for Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound” in 1987.

She was recently promoting a new Netflix series this month in which she appears, “No Good Deed,” and filming the upcoming Hulu series, “Mid-Century Modern.” According to Deadline, which first reported his death.

Leon grew up in Portland, Maine and moved to New York City after graduating from the College of William and Mary. She used to sing in nightclubs and ensemble shows.

Acclaimed producer and director Hal Prince gave Leon his first big break while directing the Broadway musical “It’s a Bird… It’s a Planet… It’s Superman.” He won a Tony 18 years later for another Simon play, “Broadway Bound,” before receiving a Tony nomination in 1969 for Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers.”

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

Back on Broadway, Lavigne later starred in the Paul Rudnick comedy “The New Century,” a concert show called “Songs and Confessions of a One-Time Waiter” and a Tony nomination in Donald Margulies’ “Collected Stories.” received

Michael Kachwara of The Associated Press wrote of Levine in “Collected Stories” that she “gives one of those full-bodied, nuanced performances, with a woman’s intellectual strength, her sense of humor, and her surprising loyalty.” His growing physical vulnerability is captured. His sense of timing is superb, whether delivering a joke or picking apart his work at high speed.”

Levine made a new splash in his 70s, earning a Tony nomination for Nicky Silver’s “The Levines.” He also starred in revivals of “Other Desert Cities” and “Follies” before transferring to Broadway.

The AP again raved about Levine in “The Lyons”, calling her “a wonderful surprise to watch as Rita Lyons, a motherly nuisance with a combination of strong convictions and eye rolls, A married woman who is suffocating and keeps everyone at arms 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 Backup Plan.”

When asked for guidance for aspiring actresses, Levine emphasized one thing. She told the AP in 2011, “I say what happened for me was that work pays off.

She and Steve Buckonas, an artist, musician and her third husband, converted an old automotive garage in Wilmington, North Carolina, into the 50-seat Red Barn Studio Theater.

It opened in 2007 and his productions include John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt”, David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross”, David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Rabbit Hole” and Charles Bush’s “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife”. , in which Leon also starred on Broadway, received a Tony nomination.

She returned to TV in 2013 in “Sean Saves the World,” starring “Will & Grace’s” Sean Hayes, the show lasted for one season. Leon also made appearances on “Mom” and “9JKL”.