Linda Lavin

Linda Lavin (/ˈlævɪn/; 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 fame 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 in a 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).

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 The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), and later had roles in I Want to Go Home (1989), See You in the Morning (1989) and Being the Ricardos (2021).

Lavin was born in Portland, Maine, the younger daughter of David Joseph Lavin, a businessman, and Lucille Dorothy (née Potter), an opera singer. The Lavin family were active members of the local Jewish community. Both sets of grandparents emigrated from Russia. Her family was musically talented, and Lavin was on stage from the age of five.

She attended Waynflete School and Deering High School before enrolling in the College of William & Mary.

She studied acting at HB Studio in New York City.

In the summer of 1958, she played one of the leads in The Common Glory, an outdoor drama written by Paul Green and staged at an amphitheater on campus. Upon her graduation from college, she had already received her Actors' Equity Association card. She was a member of the Compass Players in the late 1950s.

In 1960 Lavin appeared at the East 74th Street Theater in George Gershwin's Oh, Kay!, with Penny Fuller and Marti Stevens.