Linda Lavin obit

Linda Lavin, Busy Broadway Actress and Star of TV’s ‘Alice,’ Dies at 87

The Tony winner starred in Neil Simon's 'Last of the Red Hot Lovers' and 'Broadway Bound' and was a tireless advocate for women's rights: "I had a commitment."  

She was not on the list.

Linda Lavin, the Tony-winning actress who spent nine seasons serving up meals with a side order of sass as the waitress Alice Hyatt on the hit CBS sitcom Alice, died Sunday. She was 87.

Lavin died unexpectedly in Los Angeles of complications from recently discovered lung cancer, her rep told The Hollywood Reporter.

Hal Prince gave Lavin her first big break, pulling her out of the chorus and giving her a speaking part on Broadway in 1962, and she worked twice with Neil Simon, earning the first of her six career Tony nominations for playing the sexpot Elaine in 1970’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers and then winning in 1987 for her turn as the strong-willed Kate in Broadway Bound.

A native of Maine, Lavin had recurred as feisty Det. Janice Wentworth on the first two seasons of ABC’s Barney Miller when she was hired in 1976 to topline Alice, created by Robert Getchell. The show was based on the Warner Bros. movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), written by Getchell, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Ellen Burstyn in an Oscar-winning performance.

The plucky Alice is a recently widowed mom with a young son (Philip McKeon on the series) who struggles to make ends meet as she holds down a job at Mel’s Diner, a greasy spoon on the outskirts of Phoenix.

Starring on Alice pulled her right into the women’s movement, she recalled in a 2012 interview. “I knew it behooved me to learn about single mothers and working women,” she said. “So I went to Gloria Steinem, whom I had met briefly, and she hooked me up with writers and columnists and newspeople who were writing about working women.

“I learned that Alice represented 80 percent of all the women who work in this country who were still struggling at 69 cents to the dollar that men were making for the same quality of work. Suddenly, I had a rhetoric, I had a commitment.”

Lavin marched in support of the Equal Rights Amendment and was invited to join the National Commission on Working Women. She often delivered speeches wearing her Alice waitress uniform “so she would speak for me.”

The actress told Charlie Rose in 1992 that she heard from women “by the thousands. [They were saying,] thank you, thank you for showing me ‘me,’ thank you for being real, thank you for showing what the issues are, thank you for giving me hope, thank you for showing me that if Alice can do it, I can do it.”

Lavin earned one Emmy nomination and two Golden Globes for her work on the series, which was ranked in the top 10 in the ratings in its fourth, fifth and sixth seasons.

After nearly 13 years away, Lavin made a triumphant return to the Great White Way with her portrayal of an abandoned wife and mother of Eugene (Jonathan Silverman) and Stanley (Jason Alexander) in Broadway Bound.

“Kate is a remarkable achievement, a Jewish mother who redefines the genre even as she gets the requisite laughs while fretting over her children’s health or an unattended pot roast,” Frank Rich wrote in his review for The New York Times. “One only wishes that Ms. Lavin, whose touching performance is of the same high integrity as the writing, could stay in the role forever.”

“I’m grateful to Neil Simon for the insight of his bountiful writing, which gets me in touch with all the women I come from, all the women in me, so that I am so fulfilled to play such a wonderful character,” she said in her Tony acceptance speech.

Lavin was born on Oct. 15, 1937, in Portland, Maine. Her mother, Lucille, was a coloratura soprano and radio personality who sang with Paul Whiteman’s band, and her father, David, owned a furniture business.

She always wanted to be an actress and graduated from the College of William & Mary as a theater arts major in 1959. She moved to New York a few months later and appeared in an off-Broadway revival of George and Ira Gershwin’s Oh, Kay!

Lavin was in the chorus out of town in Philadelphia in a troubled show called A Family Affair when “Hal Prince walked in,” she recalled in a 2018 interview with Broadway World. “I’d never met him before, dynamo of a man … [he] pointed at me and said, ‘You’re terrific, I’ll see you later,’ and the next day he was introduced as our new director and I got three speaking parts. At that time, you got $5 apiece for each speaking part. So, I was now an actor.”

She made it to Broadway with the musical comedy, and after appearing in other plays including The Riot Act, Wet Paint, The Game Is Up and Hotel Passionato, was hired by Prince again in 1966. She played Sydney, the Girl Friday of a Daily Planet columnist (Jack Cassidy), in It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman and sang about her crush on Clark Kent in “You’ve Got Possibilities, ” written by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams.

Lavin also performed Stephen Sondheim‘s “The Boy From …” in The Mad Show and toured with Van Johnson in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever before returning to Broadway in 1967 to star in the Carl Reiner comedy Something Different.

In 1969, she sparkled as Patsy opposite Fred Willard in the acclaimed Jules Feiffer black comedy Little Murders, directed by Alan Arkin. She won an Outer Critics Circle Award for her stint as a woman randomly shot on her wedding day but left to star with new husband Ron Leibman in the Broadway comedy Cop-Out, which lasted eight performances.

After Last of the Red Hot Lovers, she departed for Hollywood. In 1974, she attended the wedding shower of Valerie Harper‘s character on an episode of Rhoda and appeared in the acclaimed Dick Van Dyke telefilm The Morning After.

On Alice, Lavin enjoyed great camaraderie with her co-stars Vic Tayback, Polly Holliday and Beth Howland, directed 10 episodes and performed the theme song, “There’s a New Girl in Town.” The series wrapped in March 1985 with her character getting a recording contract and moving to Nashville with her boyfriend, country singer Travis Marsh (played by her second husband, Kip Niven).

During Alice‘s run, she also starred in several telefilms, including The $5.20 an Hour Dream, in which she played a factory worker, and hosted her own 1980 holiday-season special, Linda in Wonderland.

Her other starring efforts on series TV — all short-lived — included 1992-93’s Room for Two, with Patricia Heaton as her daughter; 1998’s Conrad Bloom; and 2013-14’s Sean Saves the World; and 2017-18’s 9JKL.

She showed up on Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet and IFC’s Brockmire, too; had more recent turns on CBS’ B Positive and Elsbeth and Netflix’s No Good Deed (she attended its premiere in Hollywood on Dec. 4); and was co-starring on the Hulu comedy Mid-Century Modern at the time of her death.

“Working with Linda was one of the highlights of our careers,” Mid-Century Modern principals David Kohan, Max Mutchnick and Jimmy Burrows said in a statement. “She was a magnificent actress, singer, musician, and a heat-seeking missile with a joke. But more significantly, she was a beautiful soul. Deep, joyful, generous and loving. She made our days better. The entire staff and crew will miss her beyond measure. We are better for having known her.”

Lavin also garnered Tony noms in 1998, 2001, 2010 and 2012 for her turns in The Diary of Anne Frank, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Collected Stories and The Lyons, respectively, and she played Carol Burnett’s grandmother in 2002-03 in Hollywood Arms, directed by Prince, who introduced her as she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2011.

On the big screen, Lavin appeared in such films as The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), See You in the Morning (1989), I Want to Go Home (1989), Wanderlust (2012), The Intern (2015), How to Be a Latin Lover (2017), Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019) and, as an older version of I Love Lucy writer Madelyn Pugh, in Being the Ricardos.

Survivors include her third husband, drummer and artist Steve Bakunas, who was 20 years her junior. They married in 2005 and ran the Red Barn Studio Theater in Wilmington, North Carolina; he also played drums in her cabaret act and on her 2011 album of show tunes and jazz standards, Possibilities.

She was married to Leibman from 1969-80 and to Niven from 1982-92. Her divorce from the latter was especially contentious; he was seeking $6 million in money and property from her, but a judge awarded him just $675,000 after a six-month trial.

 

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Actress

One Big Happy Family

Lenore

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2025

 

Mid-Century Modern

Sybil Schneiderman

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2025

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No Good Deed (2024)

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7.0

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Phyllis Adelman

2024

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Carrie Preston in Elsbeth (2024)

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7.6

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Gloria Blecher

2024

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H. Jon Benjamin, Kristen Schaal, Eugene Mirman, Dan Mintz, and John Roberts in Bob's Burgers (2011)

Bob's Burgers

8.2

TV Series

Gertie

Helen (voice)

2013–2023

2 episodes

 

Selected Shorts (2018)

Selected Shorts

Podcast Series

Performer (segment 'Silver Water') (voice)

2023

1 episode

 

Edward Asner, Chris Diamantopoulos, Erica Cerra, Brady Noon, and Hunter Dillon in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2022)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

5.1

Barb (voice)

2022

 

Annaleigh Ashford and Thomas Middleditch in B Positive (2020)

B Positive

6.3

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Norma

2020–2022

32 episodes

 

Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem in Being the Ricardos (2021)

Being the Ricardos

6.5

Older Madelyn Pugh

2021

 

Call Me Back: The Uncommon Wisdom of Yvette Slosch (2021)

Call Me Back: The Uncommon Wisdom of Yvette Slosch

6.5

Short

Yvette Slosch

2021

 

Bill Skarsgård, John Boyega, Ed Skrein, and Olivia Cooke in Naked Singularity (2021)

Naked Singularity

4.9

Judge Cymbeline

2021

 

Room 104 (2017)

Room 104

6.1

TV Series

Enid

2020

1 episode

 

Linda Lavin in Yvette Slosch, Agent (2020)

Yvette Slosch, Agent

TV Series

Yvette Slosch

2020

13 episodes

 

Brockmire (2017)

Brockmire

8.0

TV Series

Lorraine

2019

1 episode

 

Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant in Santa Clarita Diet (2017)

Santa Clarita Diet

7.8

TV Series

Jean

2019

4 episodes

 

Andrea Anders, Sophia Lillis, Zoe Renee, and Mackenzie Graham in Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019)

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase

5.7

Flora

2019

 

Amy Landecker and Ali Liebegott in Girls Weekend (2019)

Girls Weekend

7.7

TV Movie

Marie

2019

 

Téa Leoni in Madam Secretary (2014)

Madam Secretary

7.8

TV Series

June O'Callaghan

2018

1 episode

 

Elliott Gould, Mark Feuerstein, Liza Lapira, Linda Lavin, and David Walton in 9JKL (2017)

9JKL

5.1

TV Series

Judy

2017–2018

16 episodes

 

Raquel Welch, Salma Hayek, Rob Lowe, Kristen Bell, and Eugenio Derbez in How to Be a Latin Lover (2017)

How to Be a Latin Lover

6.0

Millicent

2017

 

Adrien Brody and Yvonne Strahovski in Manhattan Night (2016)

Manhattan Night

6.2

Norma Segal

2016

 

Allison Janney and Anna Faris in Mom (2013)

Mom

7.4

TV Series

Phyllis

2016

2 episodes

 

Aimee Teegarden and Krysta Rodriguez in Bakery in Brooklyn (2016)

Bakery in Brooklyn

4.5

Isabelle

2016

 

Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway in The Intern (2015)

The Intern

7.1

Patty

2015

 

David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel in Bones (2005)

Bones

7.8

TV Series

Judge Michael

2015

1 episode

 

Julianna Margulies in The Good Wife (2009)

The Good Wife

8.4

TV Series

Joy Grubick

2014–2015

3 episodes

 

A Short History of Decay (2014)

A Short History of Decay

5.8

Sandy Fisher

2014

 

Sean Saves the World (2013)

Sean Saves the World

6.3

TV Series

Lorna Harrison

2013–2014

15 episodes

 

George Hamilton, Shelley Long, Patrick Muldoon, and Ashley Scott in Holiday Road Trip (2013)

Holiday Road Trip

5.4

TV Movie

Woman on Street (uncredited)

2013

 

Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd in Wanderlust (2012)

Wanderlust

5.6

Shari Selman

2012

 

Maggie Tales

Short

Narrator (voice)

2010

 

Jennifer Lopez and Alex O'Loughlin in The Back-up Plan (2010)

The Back-up Plan

5.3

Nana

2010

 

Mischa Barton, Adam Brody, Ben McKenzie, and Rachel Bilson in The O.C. (2003)

The O.C.

7.6

TV Series

Sophie Cohen

2004–2005

3 episodes

 

Vincent D'Onofrio, Kathryn Erbe, Eric Bogosian, Julianne Nicholson, and Chris Noth in Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001)

Law & Order: Criminal Intent

7.6

TV Series

Ursula Sussman

2002

1 episode

 

Lorraine Bracco, James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Steven Van Zandt, Dominic Chianese, Robert Iler, Michael Imperioli, Steve Schirripa, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Tony Sirico, and Aida Turturro in The Sopranos (1999)

The Sopranos

9.2

TV Series

Dr. Wendi Kobler

2002

1 episode

 

Marty Grabstein in Courage the Cowardly Dog (1999)

Courage the Cowardly Dog

8.3

TV Series

Mama Bird (voice)

2002

13 episodes

 

Collected Stories (2002)

Collected Stories

8.6

TV Movie

Ruth Steiner

2002

 

Roma Downey, John Dye, and Della Reese in Touched by an Angel (1994)

Touched by an Angel

6.1

TV Series

Amanda Randolph

1999

1 episode

 

Conrad Bloom (1998)

Conrad Bloom

6.6

TV Series

Florie Bloom

1998

13 episodes

 

Gena Rowlands and Linda Lavin in Best Friends for Life (1998)

Best Friends for Life

6.6

TV Movie

Sarah 'Coop' Cooper

1998

 

The Ring (1996)

The Ring

7.2

TV Movie

Ruth Liebman

1996

 

For the Future: The Irvine Fertility Scandal (1996)

For the Future: The Irvine Fertility Scandal

5.5

TV Movie

Marilyn Killane

1996

 

Mary Tyler Moore, Shirley Knight, Linda Lavin, Nathan Watt, and Paul Winfield in Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden (1996)

Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden

7.0

TV Movie

Earline

1996

 

A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story (1995)

A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story

7.2

TV Movie

Virginia Funicello

1995

 

Whitewash (1994)

Whitewash

7.3

TV Movie

Ms. Steunberg (voice)

1994

 

Patricia Heaton and Linda Lavin in Room for Two (1992)

Room for Two

6.8

TV Series

Edie Kurland

1992–1993

26 episodes

 

I Want to Go Home (1989)

I Want to Go Home

5.4

Lena Apthrop

1989

 

See You in the Morning (1989)

See You in the Morning

5.8

Sidney

1989

 

Lena: My 100 Children (1987)

Lena: My 100 Children

6.8

TV Movie

Lena Kuchler-Silberman

1987

 

A Place to Call Home (1987)

A Place to Call Home

6.9

TV Movie

Liz Gavin

1987

 

Maricela (1986)

Maricela

5.8

TV Movie

Betty Gannett

1986

 

Polly Holliday, Beth Howland, and Linda Lavin in Alice (1976)

Alice

6.8

TV Series

Alice Hyatt

Mrs. Walden

1976–1985

202 episodes

 

Frank Oz, Dabney Coleman, Jim Henson, Joan Rivers, Gregory Hines, Art Carney, James Coco, and Linda Lavin in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)

The Muppets Take Manhattan

6.8

Kermit's Doctor

1984

 

Tracey Gold and Tony Lo Bianco in Another Woman's Child (1983)

Another Woman's Child

6.0

TV Movie

Terry DeBray

1983

 

Ernie Hudson and Linda Lavin in A Matter of Life and Death (1981)

A Matter of Life and Death

7.2

TV Movie

Nurse Joy Ufema

1981

 

The $5.20 an Hour Dream (1980)

The $5.20 an Hour Dream

6.9

TV Movie

Ellen Lissick

1980

 

The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979)

The Mary Tyler Moore Hour

6.1

TV Series

Linda Lavin

1979

1 episode

 

Kaz (1978)

Kaz

7.6

TV Series

Helen 'Frenchy' Russo

1979

1 episode

 

Linda Lavin in Like Mom, Like Me (1978)

Like Mom, Like Me

6.0

TV Movie

Althea Gruen

1978

 

Meredith Baxter, Kristy McNichol, James Broderick, Gary Frank, and Sada Thompson in Family (1976)

Family

7.6

TV Series

Annie Laurie

1977

1 episode

 

Phyllis (1975)

Phyllis

6.4

TV Series

Margaret Gates

1976

1 episode

 

Ron Carey, Max Gail, Ron Glass, James Gregory, Steve Landesberg, Hal Linden, and Jack Soo in Barney Miller (1975)

Barney Miller

8.3

TV Series

Det. Janice Wentworth

1975–1976

5 episodes

 

David Janssen in Harry O (1973)

Harry O

7.5

TV Series

Alice

1975

1 episode

 

Valerie Harper in Rhoda (1974)

Rhoda

6.8

TV Series

Linda Monroe

1974

1 episode

 

Jerry

TV Movie

Nina Pope

1974

 

The Morning After (1974)

The Morning After

7.7

TV Movie

Toni

1974

 

CBS Playhouse (1967)

CBS Playhouse

6.8

TV Series

Carol Brandt

1969

1 episode

 

Damn Yankees! (1967)

Damn Yankees!

6.6

TV Movie

Gloria Thorpe

1967

 

James Pritchett in The Doctors (1963)

The Doctors

7.0

TV Series

1963

4 episodes

 

Zina Bethune and Shirl Conway in The Doctors and the Nurses (1962)

The Doctors and the Nurses

7.4

TV Series

Doris Ilon

1963

1 episode

 

Director

CBS Schoolbreak Special (1984)

CBS Schoolbreak Special

6.8

TV Series

Director

1990

1 episode

 

Polly Holliday, Beth Howland, and Linda Lavin in Alice (1976)

Alice

6.8

TV Series

Director

1980–1984

10 episodes

 

Producer

Mary Tyler Moore, Shirley Knight, Linda Lavin, Nathan Watt, and Paul Winfield in Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden (1996)

Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden

7.0

TV Movie

executive producer

1996

 

Patricia Heaton and Linda Lavin in Room for Two (1992)

Room for Two

6.8

TV Series

executive producer

1992

1 episode

 

American Playhouse (1980)

American Playhouse

7.3

TV Series

executive producer

1991

1 episode

 

CBS Schoolbreak Special (1984)

CBS Schoolbreak Special

6.8

TV Series

executive producer

1990

1 episode

 

A Place to Call Home (1987)

A Place to Call Home

6.9

TV Movie

executive producer

1987

 

Tracey Gold and Tony Lo Bianco in Another Woman's Child (1983)

Another Woman's Child

6.0

TV Movie

co-producer

1983