Polly Holliday

Early life

Holliday was born in Jasper, Alabama, the daughter of Ernest Sullivan Holliday, a truck driver and Velma Mabell Holliday (née Cain). She grew up in Childersburg and Sylacauga, where her brother Doyle's boyhood friend Jim Nabors lived. Prior to acting, Holliday worked as a piano teacher in her native Alabama, and then in Florida. She began her acting career as a member of the Asolo Theatre Company in Sarasota, Florida, where she stayed for 10 years.

Career

In 1973, Holliday moved to New York and appeared in Alice Childress's play Wedding Band at the Public Theater. More than a year later, she was cast in the Broadway hit All Over Town. While working on All Over Town, she befriended the play's director, Dustin Hoffman, who would later work 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 Flo Castleberry on the American sitcom Alice. Her character coined the popular catchphrase Kiss my grits! The phrase became part of the American vocabulary. Holliday starred in Alice from 1976 to 1980, and then moved to her own short-lived spin-off show, Flo, in which Flo left her residence in Arizona and moved back home. The show was moderately successful during its abbreviated first season, but ratings declined during the following season, and it was canceled in 1981.

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 a serious car injury. However, the show was suffering low ratings before Holliday arrived and was soon canceled. As a result, only one of the two episodes she filmed was aired.

Holliday also made appearances on television shows such as The Golden Girls, where she played Rose Nylund's blind sister Lily; in a recurring role as Jill Taylor's mother on Home Improvement; and a regular on The Client.

Holliday's notable roles in films include All the President's Men, Mrs. Doubtfire, the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap and her role as Mrs. Ruby Deagle in the 1984 box office smash Gremlins.

On the Broadway stage, she has appeared in revivals of Arsenic and Old Lace (1986) as Martha Brewster, one of the dotty, homicidal, sweet old aunties; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1990), for which she was nominated for a Tony for her portrayal of "Big Mama"; and Picnic (1994). She also appeared in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap as the director of Camp Walden. In 2000, she appeared at Lincoln Center in a revival of Arthur Laurents's The Time of the Cuckoo.

In 2000, she was inducted into the Alabama Stage and Screen Hall of Fame.