A Grits-Kissed Legacy: Remembering Polly Holliday, Southern Star of Stage and Screen
Polly Holliday, the indelible Southern firecracker who immortalized the phrase “Kiss my grits” on television screens across America, has passed away at the age of 88. The Emmy-nominated actress died on Tuesday, September 9, in Manhattan following several years of declining health. Her longtime friend and agent, Dennis Aspland, confirmed her death to The New York Times, with pneumonia cited as the believed cause.
Born in Jasper, Alabama, in 1937, Holliday’s early life was far from Hollywood glamour—but it shaped every inch of the woman and character she would become. Her father, a trucker, and her mother, a homemaker, instilled in her both grit and grace. Summer vacations were spent riding shotgun in her father’s truck, pulling into roadside diners where the inspiration for Flo—the sassy, gum-snapping waitress she would famously bring to life on Alice—was unknowingly born.
“We’d eat at truck stops, and there would always be a waitress like Flo with a joke ready,” Holliday once told PEOPLE. “The men would say all kinds of risqué things to her, but it was understood that it wasn’t serious, just a way to make everybody’s day happier.”
It wasn’t until her college years that Holliday discovered a love for performance, trading piano keys for stage scripts. After graduating from Alabama State College for Women (now the University of Montevallo) with a degree in music, she briefly taught elementary school before a fateful summer in North Carolina changed everything. At 19, she joined the Unto These Hills Outdoor Drama Center as a choir singer and understudy. “That job paid room and board and about $40 a week,” she told Actors’ Equity. But it paid in purpose.
Her major break came under the direction of none other than Dustin Hoffman, who cast her in his 1974 Broadway directorial debut, All Over Town. Hoffman would later help secure her role in All the President’s Men—a move that led casting agents to suggest her for the television adaptation of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
In 1976, she appeared as Flo on Alice, transforming a side character into a cultural phenomenon. With her teased-up hair, Southern drawl, and razor-sharp comebacks, Holliday’s Flo quickly stole the spotlight. “I decided I wouldn’t dye my hair for the tryout,” she said of her audition. “And I just pushed my normal Alabama accent up a bit. One of the producers actually fell off his chair laughing.”
Though she departed the series in 1980 for a short-lived spin-off, Flo, Holliday’s presence lingered in American pop culture. She would go on to grace the screen in Gremlins, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Parent Trap, Home Improvement, and even The Golden Girls, showing an astonishing versatility that balanced comedy with quiet strength.
In spite of her fame, Holliday lived modestly. “I’m really not like Flo in my looks or lifestyle,” she said in 1980. “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.”
Polly Holliday leaves behind a legacy of laughter, resilience, and unmistakable Southern charm. In an industry often obsessed with reinvention, she stayed rooted—and from that rootedness, bloomed a once-in-a-generation performance. She reminded us that greatness doesn’t always come from glitz. Sometimes, it pulls up a stool at a diner counter and says with a wink, “Kiss my grits.”
