Polly Holliday, a Tony Award-nominated screen and stage actor who turned the catchphrase "Kiss my grits!"into a national retort as the gum-chewing, beehive-wearing waitress aboard the long-running CBS sitcom , has died. She was 88.

Holliday died Tuesday at her home in New York, said her theatrical agent, Dennis Aspland. She was the last surviving member of the principal cast of ; Linda Lavin, who played the title character, died last year.

ran from 1976 to 1985, a more comedic take on , the Martin Scorsese-directed 1974 film that won Ellen Burstyn an Oscar for playing the title waitress. Holliday had turned into such a star that the network gave her her own short-lived spin-off called in 1980, but it lasted just 29 episodes.

Actress Polly Holliday is shown in this Aug. 3, 1986, photo. I

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