Polly Holliday

Early life

Polly Dean Holliday was born in Jasper, Alabama, on July 2, 1937, the daughter of Ernest Sullivan Holliday, a truck driver, and Velma Mabell Holliday (née Cain). She grew up in Childersburg; her brother Doyle was a boyhood friend of Jim Nabors, who lived in nearby Sylacauga.

Holliday attended the Alabama College for Women at Montevallo (now known as the University of Montevallo) in the late 1950s where she excelled in the theater department, playing the lead roles in The Lady's Not for Burning and Medea. She graduated in 1959 with a degree in piano. She went on to Florida State University, and spent the first phase of her career earning respect on the classical stage.

Holliday worked as a piano teacher in her native Alabama, and then in Florida. She began her professional acting career as a member of the Asolo Theatre Company in Sarasota, Florida, where she stayed for 10 years.

Career

In 1972, Holliday moved to New York City and appeared in Alice Childress' 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, with whom she later appeared in 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 Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry on Alice, a sitcom airing on CBS. Her character coined the popular catchphrase "Kiss my grits!", which became part of American vernacular. Holliday starred in Alice from 1976 to 1980, and then moved to her own short-lived spin-off show Flo, in which Flo moved back home to Texas from Arizona. The show was successful during its abbreviated first season, but ratings declined during the following season due to a time change, and it was canceled in 1981.

In 1983, Holliday joined the cast of the CBS sitcom Private Benjamin as a temporary replacement for series regular Eileen Brennan, who was recovering from serious injuries after being struck by a car. She made appearances on television shows, including in The Golden Girls as Rose Nylund's blind sister Lily, in a recurring role as Jill Taylor's mother on Home Improvement, and as a regular character on The Client.

Holliday's film roles include appearances in All the President's Men (1976, as Martin Dardis' secretary), Moon over Parador (1988), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), and The Parent Trap (1998). In the 1984 hit Gremlins she played ruthless miser Ruby Deagle, winning the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her final credit was in the 2010 film Fair Game, in which she played Diane Plame, the mother of Valerie Plame.

On Broadway, she 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 Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Big Mama; and Picnic (1994) as neighbor Flo Owens. 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.

Personal life

Holliday was an Episcopalian who sang in the St. Andrews Episcopal Choir in Montevallo, Alabama. In January 2010, she appeared as herself in an official advertising campaign for the Episcopal Church. In New York City, she sang in the Episcopal Grace Church Choral Society in Greenwich Village and ran a chamber music series there.

Death

After a decline in her health, Holliday died from an apparent bout of pneumonia at her home in Manhattan, New York City, on September 9, 2025, at the age of 88. She was the last surviving member of the original cast of Alice. She never married or had children. She is buried at Green Hill Memorial Gardens in Childersburg, Alabama, with her mother.

Filmography