Linda Lavin (October 15, 1937 – December 29, 2024) Stage, screen and television 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.
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).
In 1967, Lavin made an appearance as Gloria Thorpe in a television version of the baseball musical Damn Yankees with Phil Silvers. In 1969, Lavin married actor Ron Leibman, and by 1973, the couple had arrived in Hollywood, California. After various guest appearances on episodic television series such as The Nurses, Rhoda, Harry O, and Kaz, Lavin landed a recurring role as Detective Janice Wentworth on Barney Miller during the first and second seasons (1975–1976).
She left Barney Miller to star in the lead role in Alice, which was a sitcom success that ran from 1976 to 1985 thru the CBS network. The series was based on the Martin Scorsese–directed Ellen Burstyn film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.
Lavin also made numerous television appearances outside of Alice, including hosting her own holiday special for CBS, Linda in Wonderland (1980). She acted in two sitcoms, Room for Two (1992–93) and 1998's Conrad Bloom. In Room for Two, she played a mother who moved in with her daughter, played by Patricia Heaton, who has a show on a local television station. The daughter gives Lavin's character her own segment, called "Just a Thought", at the end of her program.
She made numerous television guest appearances, including roles on The Muppet Show (1979), Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The O.C., Touched by an Angel (1999), and HBO's The Sopranos (2002).
She also appeared in many telefilms between 1967 and 1998, including: Damn Yankees!, Sadbird, The Morning After, Jerry, Like Mom, Like Me, The $5.20 an Hour Dream, Another Woman's Child, Maricela, Lena: My 100 Children, Whitewash, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story, Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden, For the Future: The Irvine Fertility Scandal, The Ring, and Best Friends for Life. Lavin produced and starred in A Matter of Life and Death, the 1981 telefilm based on the work of nurse thanatologistJoy Ufema. She directed the 1990 telefilm Flour Babies. (Wikipedia)
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