Star Of Television's "Alice" Had Operatic Childhood

Lavin as the star of Alice

"Linda Lavin, currently making eccentric comic mischief in Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, has gone from chorus girl to sitcom star to Tony-winning stage veteran in a wild professional ride that no fortune teller could have foretold. It's a tale of versatility meeting adaptability, but why grasp for formulas when Hamlet can sum up Lavin's story in a few choice words? For in her case, harking back to her crib days when, as family legend has it, she stood to deliver 'God Bless America' before anyone knew she could talk, the readiness has indeed been all. The performing arts were a given for this child from Portland, Maine, born to a mother who gave up her career as an opera singer to raise a family. Lavin's early adolescence was spent trying to become a concert pianist in fulfillment of her mother's wishes. At 15, she cut her hand before a recital and won her freedom to pursue her own dream of acting. The stage is where she developed and feels most at home, but TV is where she found national fame as the greasy-spoon waitress on the long-running series Alice." [Source]