Polly Holliday
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Polly Dean Holliday (born July 2, 1937 in Jasper, Alabama) is an American actress, best known for her role as Florence Jean Castleberry ("Flo") on the television series Alice, and later on her own show, Flo. In the late 1990s she had a recurring guest role on Home Improvement as Jill's mother.
Prior to acting, Holliday worked as a piano teacher in her native Alabama and then in Florida. She began her acting career as a member of the Asolo Theatre Company in Sarasota, Florida, where she stayed for 10 years. In 1973, she moved to New York and appeared in Alice Childress's play Wedding Band at the Public Theatre that same year. More than a year later, she was cast in the Broadway hit All Over Town. While working on All Over Town, she met and befriended actor Dustin Hoffman, who would later work with her on the 1976 movie All the President's Men (Hoffman later tried to get her the job of producing the 1982 film Tootsie). Soon, she was cast in (what would be her major break) the role of sassy, man-hungry Florence Jean Castleberry ("Flo") on the sitcom Alice.
While on the show Alice, she became very popular and coined the catch phrase "Kiss my grits!" (It was later reported that she was somewhat skeptical of the phrase, thinking it too odd). After four years on Alice (from 1976 to 1980), she moved to her own spin-off show, with the explanation that Flo moved back home to Texas from Arizona. The show was not successful and ended in 1981.
Holliday also made appearances on television shows such as The Golden Girls (as Rose's blind sister Lily), Home Improvement (as Jill's mother), and Reba (as Reba Hart's mother Helen), in movies such as Gremlins and Mrs. Doubtfire.
She appeared on Broadway in several productions, including revivals of Arsenic and Old Lace (as Martha Brewster, one of the dotty, homicidal, sweet old aunties, 1986) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (for which she was nominated for a Tony, 1990). In 2000, she appeared at Lincoln Center in a revival of Arthur Laurent's Time of the Cuckoo.
