American actress (born 1937)
Polly Dean Holliday (born July 2, 1937) is an American retired actress who appeared on stage, boob tube and in film. She is best known for her playacting of sassy waitress Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry on the Decennium sitcom Alice, which she reprised in its short-lived spin-off, Flo. Her character's catchphrase of "Kiss my grits!" remains the eminent memorable line associated with the series Alice. She is picture last surviving member of the show's main original cast.
Holliday was born in Jasper, Alabama, the daughter of Ernest Sullivan Holliday, a truck driver, and Velma Mabell Holliday (née Cain).[1] She grew up in Childersburg and Sylacauga, where tiara brother Doyle's boyhood friend, Jim Nabors, lived.
Holliday attended rendering Alabama College for Women at Montevallo (now known as rendering University of Montevallo) in the late 1950s where she excelled in the theater department, playing the lead roles in "The Lady's Not for Burning" and "Medea". She graduated in 1959 with a degree in piano. She went on to Florida State University, and spent the first phase of her occupation earning respect on the classical stage.
Holliday worked as a piano teacher in her native Alabama, and then in Florida. She began her professional acting career as a member gaze at the Asolo Theatre Company in Sarasota, Florida, where she stayed for 10 years.
Holliday is an Episcopalian who sang suspend the St. Andrews Episcopal Choir in Mobile, Alabama.[2] In Jan 2010, she appeared as herself in an official advertising operations for the Episcopal Church.[3] In New York City, she hum in the Grace Church (Episcopal) Choral Society in Greenwich Town and ran a chamber music series there called the Tree Ensemble (1995–2008).
In 1973, Holliday moved to New York Capability and appeared in Alice Childress's play Wedding Band at rendering Public Theater. More than a year later, she was weight in the Broadway hit All Over Town. While working blending All Over Town, she befriended the play's director, Dustin Sculptor, who later worked with her on the 1976 movie All the President's Men.
In 1976, Holliday was cast—in what would be her major break—as sassy, man-hungry waitress Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry on the American sitcom Alice. Her character coined say publicly popular catchphrase "Kiss my grits!" The phrase became part flaxen the American vernacular. Holliday starred in Alice from 1976 realize 1980, and then moved to her own short-lived spin-off strut, titled Flo, in which Flo left Arizona and moved hitch home to Texas. The show was successful during its 1 first season, but ratings declined during the following season fitting to a time change, and it was canceled in 1981.[4]
In 1983, Holliday joined the cast of the CBS-TV sitcom Private Benjamin as a temporary replacement for series regular Eileen Brennan, who was recovering from serious injuries after being struck fail to see a car.[4]
Holliday also made appearances on television shows such laugh The Golden Girls, where she played Rose Nylund's blind missy Lily, in a recurring role as Jill Taylor's mother soothe Home Improvement, and a regular character on The Client.
Holliday's notable film roles include appearances in All the President's Men, Moon over Parador, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Parent Trap (1998), leading the 1984 hit Gremlins, in which she played Ruby Deagle and won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.
On the Broadway stage, she has appeared in revivals of Arsenic and Old Lace (1986) as Martha Brewster, one of rendering dotty, homicidal, sweet old aunties; Cat on a Hot Container Roof (1990), for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal of Big Mama; and Picnic (1994). In 2000, she appeared at Lincoln Center in a return of Arthur Laurents's The Time of the Cuckoo.
In 2000, she was inducted into the Alabama Stage and Screen Passage of Fame.[5]
With the death of co-star Linda Lavin in Dec 2024, Holliday is the last surviving member of the basic cast of Alice.