By Cynthia Charlene Greason
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Linda Lavin (October 15, 1937 – December 29, 2024) was an American actress and singer. Known for her roles on stage and screen, she received several awards including three Drama Desk Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Obie Awards, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for a Daytime Emmy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2010.
After acting as a child, Lavin joined the Compass Players in the late 1950s. She made her television debut in Rhoda and had a recurring role in Barney Miller (1975–1976). She gained notoriety for playing the title role of a waitress at a roadside diner in the CBS sitcom Alice (1976–1985), a role for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and won two consecutive Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. She later starred in NBC‘s sitcom Sean Saves the World and the CBS sitcom 9JKL and took recurring roles in the legal drama The Good Wife (2014–2015) and the sitcom B Positive (2020–2022). She was set to star in Hulu sitcom Mid-Century Modern at the time of her death with a pilot and ten of thirteen episodes filmed and to premiere in 2025. The production team issued a statement but plans for re-cast have yet to be determined.
On stage, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play playing a strong-willed mother in the Neil Simon play Broadway Bound (1987). She was Tony-nominated for her roles in Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1970), The Diary of Anne Frank (1998), The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (2001), Collected Stories (2010), and The Lyons (2012). She is also known for acting in It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman (1966), On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1967), Gypsy (1990), The Sisters Rosensweig (1993), and Follies (2011). She made her film debut in Damn Yankees! (1967) and later had roles in The Morning After (1974), The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), I Want to Go Home (1989), and Being the Ricardos (2021).
Lavin died from complications of lung cancer in Los Angeles, on December 29, 2024, at the age of 87.
