Linda Lavin, Alice and Broadway Star, Dead at 87

Transcript

00:00I know. Why don't we do it here?

00:03You mean your boss might open the diner for us?

00:06Listen, for a chance to feed 20 parents, he'd open his grandfather's tomb.

00:10I'm really interested in women who walk through fire and come out standing.

00:15Women who find themselves in situations they never thought they would

00:22and find a resource within themselves to tackle that adversity.

00:31Stage and screen icon Linda Lavin has died.

00:34Linda's reps say her death follows a recent lung cancer diagnosis.

00:38She was 87 years old.

00:41Linda became a television legend thanks to her groundbreaking sitcom Alice.

00:57The title character gave a voice to blue collar single moms for nine seasons.

01:02She was just passing through, but if things work out, she's gonna stay.

01:12I think we probably raised about five or six generations of children

01:15since the show was first on with reruns.

01:18We just need to keep telling stories of women and single mothers

01:21and equality of pay or the lack of equality of pay.

01:25We still need to be focusing on women's issues however we can.

01:30Alongside Linda's TV fame was her fans on Broadway.

01:34A theater mainstay for decades, Linda took home a Tony Award in 1987.

01:40I am proud and grateful and excited and fulfilled in a way that it's hard to articulate.

01:46Is it too much to want a fresh start? Is it too much to hope for a clean palate?

01:51I look at that sofa, I know it was cream when we bought it.

01:55Linda worked until the very end.

01:58Her most recent TV series, Netflix's No Good Deed, dropping just weeks before her death.

02:04But I can promise you it was just a raccoon last night. Paul went and checked.

02:09Well, Paul lied because it was no raccoon. Check your AOL.

02:16I often choose pieces of material and songs to sing that have to do with who I am now,

02:23what my life is about now. It's sometimes an unconscious choice and sometimes it's conscious.

02:28To do work, to do material that represents and says who I am, what I care about, what my life is about.