Linda Lavigne, the Tony Award-winning actress who starred in the hit sitcom “Alice,” has died at the age of 87.

Linda Lavigne, a Tony Award-winning stage actress who became a working-class icon as a paper-hatted waitress on the TV sitcom. AliceHe died. She was 87 years old.

Lavigne died in Los Angeles on Sunday of complications from recently discovered lung cancer, her representative, Bill Velorick, told The Associated Press in an email.

After her success on Broadway, Lavigne tried her luck in Hollywood in the mid-1970s. She has been chosen to star in a new CBS comedy series based on Alice doesn’t live here anymorethe film directed by Martin Scorsese, won Ellen Burstyn an Academy Award for her role as the waitress.

The title has been shortened to Alice Lavigne has become a role model for working mothers like Alice Hyatt, a widowed mother with a 12-year-old son who works at a roadside diner outside Phoenix. show with Lavigne singing the theme song There’s a new girl in townextending from 1976 to 1985.

The show turned “Kiss my grits” into a catchphrase and co-starred Polly Holliday as waitress Flo and Vic Tayback as the rude owner and head chef of Mel’s Diner. The series bounced around the CBS schedule during its first two seasons but was a hit that spawned it It’s all in the family on Sunday nights in October 1977. It was among the top 10 primetime series in four of the next five seasons. Variety magazine listed it as one of the best workplace comedies of all time.

Lavigne soon won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Neil Simon Broadway Bound in 1987, which also received the Drama Desk, Outer Critics, and Helen Hayes Awards.

“She was an amazing performer with a generous heart,” the Actors’ Equity Guild said on Channel X. You will get sick.

As recently as this month, she was promoting a new Netflix series in which she appears, No good joband filming the upcoming Hulu series, Mid-century modern, According to the deadlineWhose death was announced for the first time. She also appeared in 2024 as a guest star on Elspeththe sub-display of The good wife.

Lavigne 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 on show sets.

Renowned producer and director Hal Prince gave Lavigne her first big break while directing a Broadway musical It’s a bird… it’s a plane… it’s Superman. She went on to receive a Tony nomination in Simone Another hot red lovers in 1969 before winning another Simon play 18 years later, Broadway Bound.

In the mid-1970s, Lavigne moved to Los Angeles. She had a recurring role in Barney Miller In 1976, he was chosen to star in a new CBS comedy series based on Ellen Burstyn’s Oscar-winning comedy-drama Waitress. Alice doesn’t live here anymore.

Returning to Broadway, Lavigne starred in the Paul Rudnick comedy New centuryHe had a musical show called Songs and Confessions of a One-Time Waitress He received a Tony nomination for Donald Margulies’ film. Collected stories.

“A star in all mediums, but a pure theatrical genius. She was happily funny, very emotional, and audiences loved her. She never disappointed: I worked with her, and just watching her rehearse and build a show was a great education and joy.” Rudnick wrote about X.

Michael Koschwara of the Associated Press praised Lavin Collected storieswrote that she “delivers one of those complete, precise performances, capturing the woman’s intellectual strength, her wry humor and her heightened physical fragility with startling sincerity. Lavigne’s sense of timing is exquisite, whether he’s telling a joke or acerbically explaining her protégé’s work.”

Lavigne enjoyed a wave of renewed attention in her 70s, earning a Tony nomination for Nikki Silver. Lyons. She also played the lead role Other desert cities And revive Stupidity Before they moved to Broadway.

The AP once again took an interest in Lavigne Lyonsdescribing her as “an absolute wonder to look at as Rita Lyons, a nagging mother with a set of deeply held beliefs and eye rolls, a smothering mother who keeps everyone at arm’s 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 Backup plan.

When asked about mentoring up-and-coming actors, Lavigne stressed one thing. “I would say what happened for me is that work brings work,” she told the AP in 2011. “As long as it wasn’t morally reprehensible to me, I did it.”

She and Steve Bakunas, an artist, musician, and third husband, converted an old parking garage into the 50-seat Red Barn Studio Theater in Wilmington, North Carolina. It was opened in 2007 and includes their productions doubt By John Patrick Shanley, Glengarry Glen Ross By David Mamet, Rabbit hole Written by David Lindsay Aber An allergy wife’s tale by Charles Busch, in which Lavigne also starred on Broadway, earning a Tony nomination.

She returned to television in 2013 Shawn saves the worldChampionship Will and Grace Sean Hayes, a show that ran for a season. Lavigne also appeared in or and 9JKL.