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<blockquote data-quote="ClassyCo" data-source="post: 436504" data-attributes="member: 7">I was thinking about ALICE yesterday. Well, more specifically, the off-camera that circled between Linda Lavin and her co-stars. Lavin, as it&#039;s been said, was not the easiest person to work with, especially considering she was &quot;the star&quot; of ALICE and held a certain control over the direction and &quot;look&quot; of the show. A jealous sprung from Lavin towards Polly Holliday, who became the breakout star (or fan favorite character) on the show. Her &quot;Kiss my grits!&quot; catchphrase always got big laughs, and she was arguably the funniest character on the show. According to which story you believe, Lavin advocated for Holliday to have her FLO spin-off (which lasted 29 episodes before being canned) and Holliday was more than willing to leave ALICE. Holliday&#039;s replacement, Diane Ladd, suffered a similar fate, and left ALICE abruptly with a hastily-written &quot;goodbye&quot; scene taking place away from Mel&#039;s Diner over the phone. What Lavin didn&#039;t seem to &quot;get&quot; or care about was that Holliday drew more viewers to &quot;her&quot; show. In saying that, ALICE continued successfully for a few more years after both Holliday and Ladd had already left the show. If memory serves, Ladd&#039;s character, Belle, isn&#039;t even mentioned in the finale, and Holliday&#039;s Flo is shown briefly but not mentioned by name. Such issues have plagued the productions of other shows over the years. Marla Gibbs apparently had issues with Jackee Harry being the breakout star of &quot;227&quot; and eventually succeeded in having her edged out of the show. Cybill Shepherd also showed her animosity towards co-star Christine Baranski on her &#039;90s sitcom CYBILL for being the audience&#039;s &quot;favorite&quot; character. But, on the flipside, there have been just many stars of shows that have encouraged their co-stars as fan favorites. Andy Griffith was all for Don Knotts being the &quot;laugh getter&quot; on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. Griffith tried to get Knotts to stay when went to leave in 1965, but supported his decision to take a once-in-a-lifetime deal to make films for Universal Pictures. THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW (which later morphed into MAYBERRY R.F.D.) ran for another five years without Knotts as a regular cast member, but the quality noticeably dropped -- which, to be fair, some of that could be contributed to the change to color and the change in the &quot;tone&quot; of the show, along with Knotts&#039; absence as the comedic sidekick to Griffith&#039;s straight-man. Likewise, Mary Tyler Moore wanted Valerie Harper to postpone her spin-off until MARY TYLER MOORE ended its run, but CBS saw their chance to expand the brand and created RHODA and then PHYLLIS while the parent show was still in production. Moore has been quite vocal about the qualities Harper added to &quot;her&quot; show and how she spoke against any spin-offs, but advocated in Harper&#039;s favor once the spin-off was greenlit by the network. Hollywood, it&#039;s full of egos.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ClassyCo, post: 436504, member: 7"] I was thinking about ALICE yesterday. Well, more specifically, the off-camera that circled between Linda Lavin and her co-stars. Lavin, as it's been said, was not the easiest person to work with, especially considering she was "the star" of ALICE and held a certain control over the direction and "look" of the show. A jealous sprung from Lavin towards Polly Holliday, who became the breakout star (or fan favorite character) on the show. Her "Kiss my grits!" catchphrase always got big laughs, and she was arguably the funniest character on the show. According to which story you believe, Lavin advocated for Holliday to have her FLO spin-off (which lasted 29 episodes before being canned) and Holliday was more than willing to leave ALICE. Holliday's replacement, Diane Ladd, suffered a similar fate, and left ALICE abruptly with a hastily-written "goodbye" scene taking place away from Mel's Diner over the phone. What Lavin didn't seem to "get" or care about was that Holliday drew more viewers to "her" show. In saying that, ALICE continued successfully for a few more years after both Holliday and Ladd had already left the show. If memory serves, Ladd's character, Belle, isn't even mentioned in the finale, and Holliday's Flo is shown briefly but not mentioned by name. Such issues have plagued the productions of other shows over the years. Marla Gibbs apparently had issues with Jackee Harry being the breakout star of "227" and eventually succeeded in having her edged out of the show. Cybill Shepherd also showed her animosity towards co-star Christine Baranski on her '90s sitcom CYBILL for being the audience's "favorite" character. But, on the flipside, there have been just many stars of shows that have encouraged their co-stars as fan favorites. Andy Griffith was all for Don Knotts being the "laugh getter" on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. Griffith tried to get Knotts to stay when went to leave in 1965, but supported his decision to take a once-in-a-lifetime deal to make films for Universal Pictures. THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW (which later morphed into MAYBERRY R.F.D.) ran for another five years without Knotts as a regular cast member, but the quality noticeably dropped -- which, to be fair, some of that could be contributed to the change to color and the change in the "tone" of the show, along with Knotts' absence as the comedic sidekick to Griffith's straight-man. Likewise, Mary Tyler Moore wanted Valerie Harper to postpone her spin-off until MARY TYLER MOORE ended its run, but CBS saw their chance to expand the brand and created RHODA and then PHYLLIS while the parent show was still in production. Moore has been quite vocal about the qualities Harper added to "her" show and how she spoke against any spin-offs, but advocated in Harper's favor once the spin-off was greenlit by the network. Hollywood, it's full of egos. [/QUOTE]

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