Broadway, TV, and film star Linda Lavin died on Sunday, December 29, 2024, after recently being diagnosed with lung cancer. She was 87 years old.

Lavin won a Tony award for Broadway Bound and had a recurring role on Barney Miller. She starred in the sitcom Alice from 1976 to 1985, earning an Emmy nomination and two Golden Globe wins for her work on the show.

She was born in Portland, Maine on October 15, 1937, and acted in high school and college. Lavin moved to New York City with an early Broadway appearance in 1966’s It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman. Her early theater credits also included Something Different and Last of the Red Hot Lovers, which earned her a Tony nomination. She returned to Broadway in the late ‘80s for Broadway Bound, and was nominated four more times over the next few decades.

Her onscreen debut was in 1963 episodes of The Doctors, then she was in Damn Yankees!, Phyllis, and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour. Lavin was in The Muppets Take Manhattan, she starred in the series Room for Two, and was in multiple episodes of Conrad Bloom. She voiced Mama Bird in Courage the Cowardly Dog, she did guest appearances on The Sopranos, The O.C., The Good Wife, and Bones.

At the time of her passing, she was promoting her new series, No Good Deed, and filming the series, Mid-Century Modern.