So what happened to Holliday after “Flo” was canceled? Well, she never returned to “Alice,” but she had no trouble finding a new gig, securing a role in an NBC live presentation of the play “All the Way Home.” The play, which aired on December 21, 1981, was an all-star affair, with Holliday co-starring alongside Sally Field and William Hurt. The gig was only the start of what would prove to be an ongoing series of post-“Flo” roles for Holliday.<\/p>\n
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Holliday got straight back to work after Flo’s cancellation<\/p>\n
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\n ![\"Polly](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/holliday-got-straight-back-to-work-after-flos-cancellation-1776289581.jpg\")
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Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Polly Holliday worked steadily throughout the 1980s, mixing things up among TV, film, and theatre. In 1982, she starred in the debut episode of PBS’ “American Playhouse” (a production of John Cheever’s “The Shady Hill Kidnapping”), was part of the ensemble for the TV movie “Missing Children: A Mother’s Story,” and joined the cast of the CBS sitcom “Private Benjamin”\u00a0for its third and final season. In the latter, she played Cpt. Amanda Allen, a character added to the show as a temporary replacement for Eileen Brennan’s character, Cpt. Doreen Lewis, after Brennan was hit by a car and incapacitated. Holliday only made three appearances before the series was canceled.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, 1983 brought another TV movie (“The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story”), while 1984 provided Holliday with arguably the most famous role of her film career: the always dramatic and frequently despicable Mrs. Deagle in “Gremlins,” which won her the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress and provided her with a rather memorable\u00a0\u2014 and darkly hilarious \u2014\u00a0death scene via stairlift. As the decade progressed, Holliday continued to pop up in occasional TV episodes\u00a0of shows like “The Golden Girls”\u00a0and “The Equalizer.” She also made her way back to the theater, appearing alongside Jean Stapleton and Abe Vigoda in a 1986 Broadway revival of “Arsenic and Old Lace” as Martha Brewster.<\/p>\n
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Holliday worked steadily into her 70s<\/p>\n
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\n ![\"Polly](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/holliday-worked-steadily-into-her-70s-1776289582.jpg\")
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Paul Hawthorne\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The 1990s also were a busy time for Polly Holliday, starting with a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance as Big Mama in the 1990 revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”\u00a0A few years later, she returned to Broadway as Flo Owens in the 1994 revival of the 1954 play “Picnic,”\u00a0co-starring future “Friday Night Lights<\/a>” star Kyle Chandler.<\/p>\n Additionally, Holliday appeared in two major box office hits \u2014 1993’s “Mrs. Doubtfire” and the 1998 remake of “The Parent Trap” \u2014 as well as Ellen DeGeneres’ lone outing as a leading actress, 1996’s “Mr. Wrong.” Once again, episodic TV provided the most consistent work: Holliday had a recurring role on “Home Improvement” as Jill’s mom, a one-off appearance on “Homicide: Life on the Street,” and her first series-regular role since “Alice,” playing Momma Love on the TV adaptation of John Grisham’s novel “The Client.”<\/p>\n Upon entering the 2000s, Holliday began to slow down. She appeared in a revival of Arthur Laurents’ “The Time of the Cuckoo” at Lincoln Center in 2000, and in the second half of the decade, she had roles in a trio of films: “Stick It” (2006), Ben Stiller’s remake of “The Heartbreak Kid” (2007), and 2010’s “Fair Game,” in which she played Naomi Watts’ mother.<\/p>\n