Polly Holliday

The Piano and Stages of Florida

Polly Holliday wasn't looking for television fame when she settled in New York. She came from the stages of Sarasota and brought a refined technique from regional theater that had little to do with canned laughter. In 1976, she accepted a supporting role in the series Alice, and her life changed because of a catchphrase that was never meant to become a mass phenomenon.

And then the battle cry came.

That "Kiss my grits" line was born as an improvisation to get around the censors of the era. Holliday played Flo Castleberry with a mix of brassiness and tenderness that stole the spotlight from the series for four seasons. Yet she always felt like an outsider in the world of fast-food sitcoms.

Before becoming a small-screen star, she worked as a piano teacher, and she applied that academic discipline to every script that landed in her hands. In 1976, she had a brief appearance in All the President's Men, where she showed she could hold her own against Hollywood's biggest names without blinking.

The Risk of Being Trapped in the South

Her success was so immediate that CBS gave her her own series, titled Flo, in 1980. It lasted just twenty-eight episodes. The actress soon discovered that audiences loved the character but didn't necessarily want to watch her family drama in Texas on its own.

Because Holliday was much more than a thick accent and a teased wig. After her own series was canceled, she decided she would never play the sassy waitress again, despite the million-dollar offers she received to keep milking the role. She turned down aggressive advertising contracts to return to what she considered serious work.

Theater was always her true refuge.

She returned to Broadway in 1990 to play Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. That role earned her a Tony nomination and won back the respect of New York critics who had typecast her in small-town roles. She didn't care about money from commercials, because she preferred the tension of live performance on stage.

The Villain Nobody Could Forget

Joe Dante cast her in Gremlins in 1984 because he needed someone who could be hateful without falling back on cheap jokes. Her performance as Ruby Deagle is an exercise in pure coldness. Holliday insisted on performing her own risky scenes in the mechanical chair to make the character's death more realistic.

In 1993 she appeared in Mrs. Doubtfire, and in 1998 she joined the cast of The Parent Trap. They were brief roles, but performed with pinpoint precision. Holliday knew that in commercial film a solid supporting actor is worth more than a mediocre lead, and she managed her energy with an intelligence that was rare in the Los Angeles industry.

So her retirement came as no surprise to those close to her.

She ended her professional career after appearing in the play Dividing the Estate in 2008. She settled in New York, away from the spotlight and the constant requests to repeat her famous line from the seventies. In 2010, she was inducted into the Alabama Stage and Screen Hall of Fame for her technical contribution to acting.