<Tr> <Th> Related shows </Th> <Td> Flo </Td> </Tr> <P> Alice is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from August 31, 1976, to March 19, 1985 . The series is based on the 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore . The show stars Linda Lavin in the title role, a widow who moves with her young son to start life over again, and finds a job working at a roadside diner in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona . Most of the episodes revolve around events at Mel's Diner, where Alice is employed . </P> <P> Alice Hyatt (Lavin) is an unemployed widow after her husband, Donald, is killed in a trucking accident, and with her young son Tommy (played by Alfred Lutter in the pilot episode, reprising his role from the film, but played by Philip McKeon thereafter) heads from their New Jersey home to Los Angeles so that she can pursue a singing career . Her car breaks down on the way in Phoenix (from a presumed engine fire, as seen in the opening credits), and we meet her soon after she has taken a job as a waitress at Mel's Diner, on the outskirts of Phoenix . (The later seasons' exterior shots were of a real diner, named Mel's, still in operation in Phoenix .) Alice works alongside Mel Sharples (Vic Tayback), the grouchy, stingy owner and cook of the greasy spoon, and fellow waitresses and friends, sassy, man - hungry Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry (Polly Holliday), and neurotic, scatterbrained Vera Louise Gorman (Beth Howland). </P> <P> Each episode invariably started inside the diner, and most if not all subsequent scenes took place there as well . A frequent set for non-diner scenes was Alice's one - bedroom apartment in the Desert Sun apartments . (Tommy used the bedroom and Alice slept on a sleeper sofa in the living room .) Vera and Mel's studio apartments and Flo's trailer were occasionally seen . Two of the diner's biggest competitors, Barney's Burger Barn and Vinnie's House of Veal, were sometimes mentioned . </P>

Who played mel on the tv show alice