Linda Lavin, Tony-winning Broadway actress and star of “Alice”, dies at 87

Linda Lavin died on Sunday, Dec. 29 due to complications from lung cancer, which was recently discovered, her publicist, Michael Gagliardo, confirmed to Entertainment Weekly. She was 87. Lavin was an actress and singer best known for her work on Broadway and starring in the 1976 sitcom Alice.

Lavin, born on Oct. 15, 1937, began appearing on Broadway (and Off-Broadway) productions in the 1960s before earning her first Tony nomination in 1970 for her work in Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers. She then decided to try her hand in Hollywood, with her last Broadway credit before the move being 1971’s Paul Sills’ Story Theatre.

Turning her focus to the screen, Lavin broke big playing the titular character in CBS’ Alice. The series, which ran for nine seasons, earned Lavin her first Primetime Emmy nomination, as well as three Golden Globe nominations. She took home the Globe for her work on the show in both 1979 and 1980.

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Lavin would return to Broadway in 1987 in Broadway Bound, for which she won a Tony for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play. “Her performance in Broadway Bound is widely considered one of the most memorable in contemporary Broadway history, winning not just awards but praise approaching the level of myth,” wrote Charles McNulty, theater critic for the Los Angeles Times.

But that was only the beginning for Lavin. She’d go on to earn four more Tony nominations — in 1998 for her work in The Diary of Anne Frank, in 2001 for The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, in 2010 for the Broadway revival of Collected Stories, and again in 2012 for The Lyons.

Throughout the rest of her career, she’d fluctuate between theater and television, whether directing plays, starring in them, or showing up on the small screen. In the 2000s, she had a number of memorable guest appearances on shows, including The Sopranos, The O.C., and The Good Wife, for which she was nominated for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series at the Critics Choice Television Awards in 2015.

Lavin most recently portrayed Phyllis Adelman in the Netflix series No Good Deed and was set to star in the upcoming comedy series Mid-Century Modern.

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"For me, acting is about discovering myself, discovering all the people who live in me, finding the writing that says, 'Oh, I want to tap into this. I want to find that person in me. That person who stands up for a belief, takes the risk, gets accused of something and touches into the horror of the shame, the guilt,’” Lavin told the Los Angeles Times in 2011. “It's not about putting on a mask and costume and saying 'I'm being somebody else.' How I feel about acting is that I'm showing you myself. I'm showing you myself through someone's creation."

Lavin is survived by her husband, Steve Bakunas.

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