Lavin every minute of it

''Alice'' star brings cabaret act to S.F.
Friday, August 26, 2005 | by dan pine

For years, actress Linda Lavin lived and worked in California. But "Alice" doesn't live here anymore.

These days the star of the '70s-era sitcom "Alice" lives in Wilmington, N.C. Seems like an odd place for a nice Jewish girl from New England to call home. But Lavin says she loves it down in Dixie.

"I came here to make a movie 11 years ago," she says, "and I fell in love with the town and people. I was ready for a change."

Another aspect of that change is expanding into cabaret. Lavin will bring her act "The Song Remembers When" for a 12-day run at S.F.'s Empire Plush Room beginning Sept. 6.

Though most people know Lavin from her TV work, she's been singing all her life and boasts an impeccable musical theater resume (including a starring role in a Broadway revival of "Gypsy").

For her act, Lavin assembled an eclectic collection of songs, from show tunes to country ballads to Brazilian swing. "They tell my story," she says. "I started out in New York clubs, trying to make a few bucks while auditioning for the theater. This is revisiting a venue that was always kind of scary. You're up there naked telling your story, hoping it connects."

Lavin has already performed the show in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Palm Beach, Fla., and the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. The San Francisco dates mark her West Coast premiere.

"My voice has changed since I was kid," she says. "It has more subtlety now. The important thing is telling the story and connecting with myself."

Just because she lives in the South doesn't mean Lavin has forsaken show business. She works all the time, on stage and for TV, including a recurring role on the Fox series "The O.C." Wilmington itself is a southern arts oasis, with an opera house, a flourishing theater scene and even a TV studio ("Dawson's Creek" was filmed there).

There's also a thriving Jewish community, which means a lot to Lavin, who takes her Jewishness to heart. "I live on a daily basis as a Jew," she says. "I'm all about comfort and belonging."

Born in Portland, Maine, Lavin grew up the daughter of a former opera singer. Musical herself, Lavin studied piano and later started flexing her acting muscles at the local Jewish Community Center.

Lavin's theater career has earned her a mantle full of accolades including the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards as Best Actress in Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound." She received a Tony nod for roles in "Tales of The Allergist's Wife," a revival of "The Diary of Anne Frank" and Simon's "Last of the Red Hot Lovers."

Of course, her signature role is the character of Alice Hyatt on "Alice," which enjoyed a nine-year run on CBS starting in 1976. The sitcom lives on in cable reruns.

In between acting and singing, Lavin has explored her Jewish ancestry. Earlier this year, she toured the Baltics, which included a stop in Vilnius, Lithuania, her ancestral hometown.

"It was powerful," she says of the journey. "[The Germans] killed 94 percent of the Jewish population. I was reeling with the connection to my foremothers and forefathers. If not for their courage in getting out, they wouldn't have survived."

Little did those forebears realize their descendant would end up a network TV star.

Or a southern belle.

"In the first six months, we went through two hurricanes," says Lavin of her Carolina home. "I had just left the forest fires and earthquakes. I just exchanged one natural disaster for another."




Linda Lavin's "The Song Remembers When" plays 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, Sept. 6-17, and 3 p.m. Sundays, Sept. 11 and 19, at the Empire Plush Room, 940 Sutter St., S.F. Tickets: $40-$50. Information: (415) 885-2800.