‘Alice’ Actress Polly Holliday Dies At 88

• Pol­ly Hol­l­i­day died on Sep­tem­ber 9, at the age of 88.
• She became a house­hold name play­ing the quick-wit­ted wait­ress Flo on the CBS sit­com ‘Alice.’
• Holliday’s career spanned the small screen, big screen, and the stage.

On Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 9, Pol­ly Hol­l­i­day passed away. She was 88 years old when she died at her Man­hat­tan home, as con­firmed by her agent, Den­nis Apland, who con­firmed news of her pass­ing to The New York Times.

Pol­ly Hol­l­i­day gained nation­al fame as Flo­rence Jean “Flo” Castle­ber­ry, the sharp-tongued wait­ress on the CBS sit­com Alice. Her deliv­ery of the catch­phrase “Kiss my grits!” became instant­ly icon­ic, earn­ing her wide­spread recog­ni­tion, two Gold­en Globe wins, and mul­ti­ple Emmy nom­i­na­tions. She cap­i­tal­ized on her pop­u­lar­i­ty by lead­ing the spin-off Flo, and went on to appear in notable films like Grem­lins and Mrs. Doubt­fire, as well as Broad­way pro­duc­tions that earned her a Tony nom­i­na­tion, mak­ing her one of the most mem­o­rable char­ac­ter actors of her era.

Polly Holliday gets her start

Pol­ly Dean Hol­l­i­day was born on July 2, 1937, in Jasper, Alaba­ma, daugh­ter of a truck dri­ver, Ernest Hol­l­i­day, and Vel­ma Mabell Hol­l­i­day. She earned a piano degree from the Alaba­ma Col­lege for Women (now Uni­ver­si­ty of Mon­te­val­lo) in 1959 and went on to study at Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty. After teach­ing music in Alaba­ma and Flori­da, Hol­l­i­day spent a decade hon­ing her craft in reper­to­ry the­atre with the Aso­lo The­atre Com­pa­ny in Sara­so­ta, Flori­da. In the ear­ly 1970s, she moved to New York, earn­ing roles in the Pub­lic The­ater pro­duc­tion Wed­ding Band and on Broad­way in All Over Town, where she met and worked with Dustin Hoff­man.

Her major break­through came in 1976 when she was cast as Flo­rence Jean “Flo” Castle­ber­ry, the sharp-tongued wait­ress on the CBS sit­com Alice. Her South­ern drawl and the catch­phrase “Kiss my grits!” became cul­tur­al sta­ples. Hol­l­i­day por­trayed Flo on Alice from 1976 to 1980, earn­ing mul­ti­ple award nom­i­na­tions and two Gold­en Globe wins. She then starred in the Flo spin-off (1980–81) as the same char­ac­ter, though the series con­clud­ed after two sea­sons.

After Flo, Hol­l­i­day tran­si­tioned to film roles in pop­u­lar titles like Grem­lins, which earned her a Sat­urn Award for Best Sup­port­ing Actress, Mrs. Doubt­fire, The Par­ent Trap, and Moon Over Parador. On tele­vi­sion, she guest-starred in Pri­vate Ben­jamin, The Gold­en Girls, play­ing Rose’s blind sis­ter, as well as Home Improve­ment, where she played Jill Taylor’s moth­er. In addi­tion, she worked off-screen as a dialect coach, help­ing Dustin Hoff­man mas­ter a South­ern accent for Toot­sie.

Hol­l­i­day returned to Broad­way for revivals of Arsenic and Old Lace (1986) and earned a Tony nom­i­na­tion in 1990 for her por­tray­al of Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Her final screen appear­ance came in the 2010 film Fair Game, where she played the moth­er of Valerie Plame. Through­out her career, she moved between stage, tele­vi­sion, and film, always deliv­er­ing mem­o­rable, ground­ed per­for­mances with­out ever becom­ing defined by a sin­gle role.