She Made 'Kiss My Grits!' a Household Retort

Polly Holliday, a Tony Award-nominated screen and stage actor who turned the catchphrase "Kiss my grits!" into a national retort as the gum-chewing, beehive-wearing waitress aboard the long-running CBS sitcom Alice, has died. She was 88. Holliday died Tuesday at her home in New York, said her theatrical agent, Dennis Aspland, per the AP. She was the last surviving member of the principal cast of Alice; Linda Lavin, who played the title character, died last year at the age of 87.

The New York Times notes that Holliday's portrayal of Flo, aka Florence Jean Castleberry, was just one facet of a long and esteemed acting career. In one of her other more notable roles, Holliday appeared in 1984's Gremlins as the cranky Mrs. Deagle, and she had other big- and small-screen appearances, including in 1976's All the President's Men and the '90s TV series The Client, based on the John Grisham novel. She also enjoyed a run on Broadway, including in 1974's All Over Town directed by Dustin Hoffman, as well as Arsenic and Old Lace, Picnic, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, for which she was nominated for a Tony in 1990.

Alice ran from 1976 to 1985, but Holliday had turned into such a star that the network gave her her own short-lived spinoff called Flo in 1980. It lasted a year. Holliday earned four Golden Globe nominations and won one in 1980 for Alice, as well as four Emmy Award nominations—three for Alice and one for Flo. As for the "Kiss my grits!" line, the Alabama-born Holliday was quick to distance herself from it, telling interviewers that the line was "pure Hollywood" and not a regional saying, per the AP. Still, she identified with Flo. "She was a Southern woman you see in a lot of places," she told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 2003. "Not well educated, but very sharp, with a sense of humor and a resolve not to let life get her down."