Jewish television and Broadway actress Linda Lavin passed away on Sunday at the age of 87 from complications from lung cancer, her representative Bill Veloric told The Associated Press.
Lavin was born in 1937 in Portland Maine to Jewish parents David Joseph Lavin and Lucille Lavin. Her father was a businessman and her mother an opera singer. Lavin first appeared on stage at the age of five. She attended the College of William and Mary, where she performed in many productions.
She performed in multiple Broadway plays in the 1960s and gained fame for her performance as Sydney in 'It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman.' She was first nominated for a Tony award in 1969 for her role in Neil Simon's “Last of the Red Hot Lover."
In the 1970s, she moved to television and played the title character in the hit sitcom 'Alice' from 1976-1985, a role for which she won two Golden Globes and received an Emmy nomination. She also performed the show's opening song "There's a New Girl in Town."
Returning to the theater in the 1980s, Lavin won a Tony award for best actress in Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound” in 1987.
She continued to act and sing for the rest of her life, making appearances in numerous plays, television shows and movies, and feature films. At the time of her passing, she was promoting "No Good Deed,” a Netflix series she appears in, and was filming an upcoming Hulu series, “Mid-Century Modern.”