Linda Lavin (born October 15, 1937 in Portland, Maine) is an American singer and Tony Award and Golden Globe Award-winning stage, film and television actress. Born to musically-talented parents, Lavin has been onstage since the age of 5. Upon her graduation from William & Mary in 1959 she had already received her Actors' Equity Association card. She was a member of the Compass Players in the late 1950s. By the early 1960s Lavin made a name for herself in New York City on Broadway, and her role and fame continued to grow over the course of the next 40 years. She went on to play Alice Hyatt in the hit TV show Alice from 1976 to 1985 and starred in numerous plays and musicals. She was awarded two Golden Globe Awards (and was nominated a third time) and received two Emmy Award nominations for her work in Alice. She was awarded a Tony Award for "Broadway Bound" and has been nominated four other times.
Lavin played the Widow Huzzit in the 1958 production of The Common Glory. Here is her profile from the program of the 1958 Common Glory:
Linda Lavin intends to pursue a career in the professional theatre as steadfastly as she, in the role of Widow Huzzitt, pursues Cephus Sicklemore; and to those who have seen her performances in the William & Mary Theatre she will very likely, as does the Widow, achieve her goal. She has worked with little theatre groups in her home town of Portland, Maine, and has appeared on television. Miss Lavin has been a vocalist with dance bands and had the feminine lead in a pre-Broadway musical by David Baker and Ira Wallach in 1955. She spent the 1957 season as a resident principal with the St. John Terrell Music Circus in Camden, N. J. In addition to the feminine lead in the 1957 William & Mary Varsity Show and leading roles in the Restorations comedies presented under the auspices of Colonial Williamsburg, Miss Lavin has appeared in several William & Mary Theatre productions: Margo in Dial M for Murder, Rosalind in As You Like It, Rosa Gonzales in Summer and Smoke, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Mrs. Levi in The Matchmaker. She is president of Theta Alpha Phi drama fraternity and is a senior at the College of William & Mary.
In 2011, she established the Linda Lavin Theatre Research Award, and joined the W&M
For more information, see:
Linda Lavin Papers, Special Collections Research Center, William & Mary Libraries.