Note: we are republishing this story which originally made the news in November 2024.
Actress Polly Holliday, best known for playing the gum-smacking waitress Flo who popularized the phrase “Kiss my grits!” on the long-running CBS sitcom “Alice,” died Tuesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 88. Holliday played the wicked Mrs. Deagle in the 1980’s featuring in Joe Dante’s “Gremlins.”

Other notable credits include “All the President’s Men,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “The Parent Trap,” with TV roles as Tim Allen’s mother-in-law on “Home Improvement” and appearances on “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” “The Golden Girls” and “Amazing Stories.”

Her last film credit was in 2010 with Doug Liman’s political thriller “Fair Game.”

She was nominated in best featured actress at the 1990 Tony Awards for her performance in a revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” starring opposite Charles Durning.