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Stories

Linda Lavin’s ‘Alice’ Was TV’s First Blue-Collar Working Single Mom

by Lauren Novak

Published October 29, 2021

Linda Lavin talks about how Alice was the first blue collar working single mom on TV

Actress Linda Lavin currently stars in the sitcom B Positive. She said she has been enjoying the role of Norma but will never forget some of her earlier roles. One of her best-known roles even made history! She starred as Alice Hyatt in the show simply named Alice.

The character Alice was a single mother who worked in Mel’s Diner. It was based on the film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Linda revealed, “Alice was the first blue-collar working woman and single mother in primetime. I had not been political in my life at all until ‘Alice’ when I recognized and learned through the research that I did … that I was representing 80% of all the working women in this country.”

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Linda Lavin’s show ‘Alice’ showed the first blue-collar working single mom

ALICE, Linda Lavin, 1976-85
ALICE, Linda Lavin, 1976-85 / Everett Collection

What an important role! The series ran from 1976 until 1985. There was another similar show called Julia. Diahann Carroll starred as a nurse and single mother in that series which premiered in 1968. Both shows were important for single working mothers around the country.

RELATED: ‘Alice’ Cast Then And Now 2021

ALICE, Polly Holliday, Vic Tayback, Linda Lavin, Beth Howland, 1976-85
ALICE, Polly Holliday, Vic Tayback, Linda Lavin, Beth Howland, 1976-85 / Everett Collection

After realizing what an impact the show had, Linda said, “So I became politicized. I was asked to speak at rallies; I spoke at a big Labor Day rally at the Washington Monument — Pete Seeger was also on the stage — and I was invited to speak to groups of people about the Equal Rights Amendment and about topics I had to learn about on the spot, because I had been a performer and actor and in many ways [was] cut off from the life of the character I was playing.”

linda lavin
BONES, Linda Lavin, ‘The Lost in the Found/The Verdict in the Victims’, (Season 10, ep. 1017/1018, aired May 7, 2015). photo: Patrick McElhenney / TM and Copyright ©20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved./courtesy Everett Collection

She continued, “I marched with Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem helped me and put me on the cover of Ms. Magazine because ‘Alice’ represented a time when the workforce was denying women equal pay.”

RELATED: 122 Classic (and Not-So-Classic) TV Sitcoms from the 1970s

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