‘Alice’ and ‘The Parent Trap’ Actress Was 88

Polly Holliday has died at the age of 88.

The actress died on Tuesday, Sept. 9 in Manhattan after several years of health issues, her agent and longtime friend Dennis Aspland confirmed to The New York Times. Her death is thought to be a result of pneumonia.

PEOPLE has reached out to Aspland for comment.

Holliday first rose to fame with with her Emmy-nominated role on the sitcom Alice, in which she played Flo from 1976 until 1980. She made a name for the breakout character through her famous catchphrase, “Kiss my grits,” and continued to play Flo in a short-lived spinoff series the following year.

Other big roles for Holliday included parts in Gremlins, The Parent Trap, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Golden Girls and Home Improvement, among many others.

Holliday was born in Jasper, Ala., in 1937. Her mother was a housewife, and her father was a trucker, and she would spend her summer vacations riding in the truck with him. Those summer memories ended up inspiring Flo, she told PEOPLE in 1980.

“We’d eat at truck stops, and there would always be a waitress like Flo with a joke ready,” she said. “The men would say all kinds of risque things to her, but it was understood that it wasn’t serious, just a way to make everybody’s day happier.”

Holliday graduated from Alabama State College for Women (now University of Montevallo) with a degree in piano, and after a year of study at Florida State University, she became a grade school music teacher.

But she soon switched to acting, which she had first found a passion for in college.

“I started acting long before I knew what I was doing,” she told Actors’ Equity. “At age 19 and a junior in college, I joined the cast of a summer outdoor theatre in North Carolina called Unto These Hills Outdoor Drama Center. I was a choir singer, a square dancer and understudied a lead role. . . . That job paid room and board and about $40 a week.”

Her first break came in 1974 when Dustin Hoffman directed her in the play All Over Town, her Broadway debut. Then, he helped her land a part in his 1976 film All the President’s Men. The movie’s casting director suggested she audition for Alice, a TV adaptation of Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

“I decided I wouldn’t dye my hair for the tryout,” she said in 1980. “And I just pushed my normal Alabama accent up a bit. One of the producers actually fell off his chair laughing.”

The series starred Linda Lavin as the title character, but Holliday’s Flo — based on Diane Ladd’s character in the film — was the bigger breakout.

Holliday said in 1980, “I’m really not like Flo in my looks or lifestyle. . . . I’m a person of few wants and very few needs. I spent 10 years in repertory living with whatever I could fit into a VW, and I like to live that way.”

Holliday received three Emmy nominations for Alice and one for the spin-off series Flo, which lasted for one season, beginning in 1980.

“After I discovered theater, I became very abrupt with my people back home,” she said in 1980. “But Flo helped me fall in love with my roots. She’s so honest I became honest too.” 

In 1982, two years after leaving Alice, Holliday joined the cast of CBS’s Private Benjamin when star Eileen Brennan was injured in a car accident.

“I was assured I’d come on as a guest star, not as Eileen’s replacement,” she told PEOPLE at the time. “I hated to get a job at the expense of someone’s misfortune, but a lot of other people’s jobs were at stake. I didn’t want to see the show fold.”

From 1982–1983, she played Major Amanda Lee Allen, a “gung-ho Army woman with the military in her blood.” She figured she was hired “because they know I can come in and get it together quickly.” 

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Holliday also appeared on The Golden Girls in 1986 as Lily, the blind sister of Betty White’s Rose. She had a recurring role on Home Improvement and was part of the main cast of The Client.

She won a Saturn Award for 1984’s Gremlins. She also appeared in the ‘90s films Mrs. Doubtfire and The Parent Trap. She continued to act on stage and received a Tony nomination in 1990 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

“I used to think I preferred drama,” she told the Tampa Bay Times in 1992, “but I kept getting cast in comedies, and realized I was sort of good at it. Now I think I would like to do comedy more. It’s hard to do, but in a way it doesn’t take as much of an emotional toll.”

She never married and had no children. She told PEOPLE in 1980, “My work is my life.”