"Kiss My Grits" . . . the End of an Era
- Susan Heavilin
- Sep 12
- 2 min read
Back in the late 70s, families would sit on the couch and tune the TV into the popular sitcom, "Alice". It aired on CBS from August 31, 1976 to March 19, 1985 and was about waitress friends working in a diner in Phoenix, Arizona. It was "the" show at the time but would probably bore you to tears in this fast-paced world of today.
One of the waitresses, Flo, was famous for her deadpan line "Kiss My Grits." The show wasn't complete without Flo popping off to a patron or whoever provoked her ire.
Flo (Polly Holliday) passed on this week and the New York Times published the following:
"Polly Holliday, the adaptable actress who was best known for playing the brash but amiable Flo on the long-running sitcom “Alice,” and who also pursued a notable stage career for decades, died Tuesday at her home in New York City. She was 88. Her death was confirmed by Dennis Aspland, her theatrical agent and friend. It came less than a year after the death of Linda Lavin, who played the show’s title character. Viewers of “Alice” could tell when Flo, a gum-chewing Southern diner waitress with attitude, was perturbed. She’d pause momentarily, address the offender in the sweetest, most dulcet tones and then suggest, deadpan, “Kiss my grits.” In the series, which was loosely based on Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and debuted on CBS in August 1976, Holliday’s character, Florence Jean Castleberry, was a flirtatious redhead — with waves and twists carefully teased and hair-sprayed in place. (It was a wig.) Shamelessly man-crazy — she had been married three times — Flo called most people “sugar,” was much too vain to wear eyeglasses and was happy to explain her own considerable appeal. As she pointed out to her boss (Vic Tayback) at the fictional roadside Mel’s Diner in Phoenix, “I’m attractive, I’m a good talker, I’m a good dancer, and the list goes on and on.” Holliday, a multiple Emmy Award nominee, won the Golden Globe Award for best supporting actress in a television series in 1979 and 1980, matching the two Golden Globes won by Lavin." —New York Times
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