The Late Great Linda Lavin

Linda Lavin, who was best known to TV viewers as the title character on Alice and who had a successful career on Broadway, died yesterday, December 29 2024, at the age of 87. The cause was complications from lung cancer.

Linda Lavin was born on October 15 1937 in Portland, Maine. Her mother was a radio personality and singer who had sung with Paul Whiteman's band. Her father operated a furniture business. She had wanted to be an actor from when she was very young. She graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1959 with a degree in theatre arts. It was a few months after her graduation that she moved to New York City. It was only a little later that she was appearing off-Broadway in a revival of George and Ira Gershwin’s Oh, Kay!.

Linda Lavin went onto a successful career on stage. She made her debut on Broadway in A Family Affair in 1962. In the Sixties she appeared on Broadway in The Riot Act, It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, Something Different. Cop-Out, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, and Paul Sills' Story Theatre. In the Seventies she appeared on Broadway in Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Paul Sills' Story Theatre, and The Enemy is Dead.

After several years during which she appeared in movies and on television (including the show Alice), she returned to Broadway with Broadway Bound in 1986. Later in the decade she she appeared in Gypsy. In the Nineties Miss Lavin appeared in The Sisters Rosensweig, The Diary of Anne Frank, and The Tale of the Allergist's Wife. In the Naughts she appeared in The Tales of the Allergist's Wife, Hollywood Arms, and Collected Stories. In the Teens she appeared in The Lyons and Our Mother's Brief Affair.

Linda Lavin made her television debut in an episode of The Nurses in 1962. The following year she guest starred on the daytime anthology series The Doctors and later on the series CBS Playhouse. In 1967 she played Gloria in a television production of Damn Yankees.

It was in 1974 that she began played the recurring role of Detective Janice Wentworth on the hit sitcom Barney Miller. She left Barney Miller in 1976 when she was cast as Alice Hyatt on the sitcom Alice. The show proved to be a hit and ran for nine seasons. During the Seventies she guest starred on the shows Rhoda, Harry O, Phyllis, Family, Kaz, and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour.

In the Eighties she continued to star on Alice. She appeared in several TV movies, including A Matter of Life and Death, Maricela, and A Place to Call Home. In the Nineties she starred on the sitcoms Room for Two and Conrad Bloom. She guest starred on the show Touched by an Angel. She appeared in such TV movies as A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story and For the Future: The Irvine Fertility Scandal.

In the Naughts Linda Lavin was the voice of Mama Bird on the animated series Courage the Cowardly Dog. She guest starred on the shows The Sopranos, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and The O.C. In the Teens she was a regular on Sean Saves the World, 9JKL, and Yvette Slosch, Agent. She guest starred on the shows The Good Wife, Bones, Mom, Madame Secretary, Santa Clarita Diet, Brockmire, and Room 104.

In the 2020s Miss Lavin was a regular on the show B Positive. She was a guest voice on Bob's Burgers. She guest starred on the shows Elsbeth and No Good Deed.

Linda Lavin not only worked on stage and television, but movies as well. She made her feature film debut in The Muppets Take Manhattan in 1984. In the Eighties she appeared in the films See You in the Morning (1989) and I Want to Go Home (1989).  In the Teens she appeared in the film The Back-Up Plan (2010). In the Teens she appeared in movies Wanderlust (2012), The Intern (2015), My Bakery in Brooklyn (2016), Manhattan Nocturne (2016), How to be a Latin Lover (2017), and Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019). In the Twenties she appeared in the film Being the Ricardos (2021) and provided a voice for the film Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick (2022).

Linda Lavin was a remarkable actress. Her role as Alice on the sitcom of the same name was a pioneering one. Quite simply, Alice was the first sitcom to focus on a single, working class mother. Alice was intelligent, persevering, and compassionate, and Linda Lavin played the role well. Of course, she also appeared on another iconic sitcom, Barney Miller, although only during the first two seasons. Detective Wentworth was dedicated and strong-willed. Miss Lavin played the role so well that she could have gone from playing a recurring character to a regular had she not taken the lead role in Alice.

Of course, Linda Lavin played many other roles on television, as well as in movies as well. She had a highly successful career on stage. Over the years she won multiple Drama Desk Awards, Obie Awards, a Tony Award, and a Theatre World Award. She was inducted into American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2010. Linda Lavin was a truly great actress who gave many, many great performances.