Polly Holliday, the prolific stage and screen actress who made television history as the gum-smacking waitress Flo on CBS’s long-running sitcom Alice immortalizing the catchphrase “Kiss my grits: has died at her Manhattan home. She was 88.
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Her passing News was confirmed to The New York Times by her longtime agent and friend, Dennis Ashland.
Rest in Peace , Dear..
Please pray for her family📷📷Polly Holliday, a prolific stage and screen actress known for playing the gum-smacking waitress Flo who popularized the phrase “Kiss my grits!” #restinpeace #PollyHolliday pic.twitter.com/VOFjUorYwT
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Polly Holliday Passed Away, Who was she?
Though Holliday rose to national fame as Florence Jean Castleberry, the wisecracking redhead of Alice, her talents reached far beyond the diner counter.
She earned four Emmy nominations and two Golden Globes for her breakout role, later headlining her own spin-off, Flo. Yet the theater remained the heartbeat of her career.
In 1990, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress for her commanding performance in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, starring opposite Charles During cementing her as a powerhouse both on stage and screen.
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