Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman was an American actress and comedian whose career spanned nearly eight decades. She received many accolades including 22 Primetime Emmy nominations and won eight, tying Julia Louis-Dreyfus for the most acting Emmy Awards ever awarded to a performer. Leachman also won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award. She was known for her versatility and distinctive physicality, where she used props to accentuate and express her roles' characterizations.
Born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Leachman attended Northwestern University and began appearing in local plays as a teenager. After competing in the 1946 Miss America pageant, she secured a scholarship to study under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York City, making her professional debut in 1948. In film, she appeared in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show as a neglected 1950s housewife who has an affair with a student of her husband, a high-school gym teacher; she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She was part of Mel Brooks' ensemble cast, playing Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein, Nurse Diesel in High Anxiety and Madame Defarge in History of the World, Part I.
Leachman won Emmys for her role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and a Golden Globe for the spinoff Phyllis, in which she starred. She also appeared in television film A Brand New Life ; A Girl Named Sooner '', where she plays a reclusive, uneducated, and elderly bootlegger; the variety sketch show Cher ; the ABC Afterschool Special production The Woman Who Willed a Miracle ; and the television shows Promised Land and Malcolm in the Middle . Her other television credits include Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Virginian, The Twilight Zone and Raising Hope. She also acted in the films Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, WUSA, Yesterday, Castle in the Sky, Spanglish and Mrs. Harris. She became the oldest ever competitor on Dancing with the Stars and wrote her memoir Cloris: My Autobiography''.
Early life and education
Leachman was born on April 30, 1926, in Des Moines, Iowa, the eldest of three daughters. Her parents were Cloris and Berkeley Claiborne "Buck" Leachman. Her father worked at the family-owned Leachman Lumber Company. Her youngest sister, Claiborne Cary, was an actress and singer. Her other sister, Mary, was not in show business. Their maternal grandmother was of Bohemian descent. Leachman attended Theodore Roosevelt High School.As a teenager, Leachman appeared in plays by local youth on weekends at Drake University in Des Moines. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Northwestern University in the School of Education. At Northwestern, she became a member of Gamma Phi Beta and was a classmate of future comic actors Paul Lynde and Charlotte Rae. She began appearing on television and in films shortly after competing in Miss America in 1946 as Miss Chicago.
Career
1948–1967: Rise to prominence
After winning a scholarship in the Miss America pageant, placing in the top 16, Leachman studied acting under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York City. She had been cast as a replacement for the role of Nellie Forbush during the original run of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. A few years later, she appeared in the Broadway-bound production of William Inge's Come Back, Little Sheba, but left the show before it reached Broadway when Katharine Hepburn asked her to co-star in a production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It. Leachman was slated to play the role of Abigail Williams in the original Broadway cast of Arthur Miller's seminal drama The Crucible. The production played four preview performances at the Playhouse Theatre in Wilmington, Delaware, from January 15–17, 1953, prior to opening on Broadway on January 22. However, Leachman left the production the day before opening night in Wilmington, with Madeleine Sherwood assuming the role. Leachman's name was heavily publicized prior to the production's opening, and her name still appeared in the printed program; a sign appeared at the box office in Wilmington noting the change.Leachman appeared in many live television broadcasts in the 1950s, including such programs as Suspense and Studio One. She played opposite John Forsythe in Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 1, Episode 2 "Premonition", which aired 10/8/1955. She also briefly held the role of the mother of "Lassie's" second master Timmy until she was replaced late in her only season with the cast by June Lockhart due to contract disputes. She made her feature-film debut as an extra in Carnegie Hall, but her first real role was in Robert Aldrich's film noir Kiss Me Deadly, released in 1955. Leachman was several months pregnant during the filming, and appears in one scene running down a darkened highway wearing only a trench coat. A year later, she appeared opposite Paul Newman and Lee Marvin in The Rack. She appeared with Newman again in a brief role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
She continued to work mainly in television, with appearances on Rawhide and in The Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life". During this early period, Leachman featured opposite John Forsythe on the anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents in an episode titled "Premonition". In 1956 she guest starred as "Flory Tibbs", in a complex role as an abused captive on the TV Western Gunsmoke in S2E8's "Legal Revenge". She later appeared as Ruth Martin, Timmy Martin's adoptive mother, in the last half of season four of Lassie. Jon Provost, who played Timmy, said, "Cloris did not feel particularly challenged by the role. Basically, when she realized that all she'd be doing was baking cookies, she wanted out." She was replaced by June Lockhart in 1958.
That same year, she appeared in an episode of One Step Beyond titled "The Dark Room", with Marcel Dalio, in which she portrayed an American photographer living in Paris. In 1960, she played Marilyn Parker, the roommate of Janice Rule's character, Elena Nardos, in the Checkmate episode "The Mask of Vengeance". In 1961, she starred as Boni, a cold-hearted woman that would sell out her man for $500 in the TV Western Gunsmoke. She appeared in The Twilight Zone S3 E8 "It's a Good Life" which aired 11/2/1961. Also in 1961, she appeared in The Donna Reed Show as Donna Stone's friend Iris. In 1962, she appeared in "The Nancy Davis Story" as a forlorn bar maid desperate for love on Wagon Train, plus she co-starred in "Trial by Fire", on an episode of Laramie that same year, as well as the "Where Beauty Lies" episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents opposite George Nader. In 1966, she guest-starred on Perry Mason as Gloria Shine in "The Case of the Crafty Kidnapper". In late 1970, Leachman starred in one episode of That Girl as Don Hollinger's sister, Sandy.
1968–1989: Stardom and acclaim
In the drama film The Last Picture Show, based on the bestselling book by Larry McMurtry, Leachman played Ruth Popper, the high-school gym teacher's neglected wife, with whom Timothy Bottoms' character has an affair. The part was originally offered to Ellen Burstyn, but Burstyn wanted another role in the film. Director Peter Bogdanovich correctly predicted during production that Leachman would win an Oscar for her performance; she won for Best Supporting Actress. Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote of her performance, "The only real warmth comes from the Leachman ...The film is above all an evocation of mood. It is about a town with no reason to exist, and people with no reason to live there. The only hope is in transgression, as Ruth knows when she seduces Sonny, the boy half her age."Leachman won acclaim portraying Phyllis Lindstrom on the CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She acted alongside Mary Tyler Moore, Valerie Harper, Ed Asner, Ted Knight, and Betty White. Leachman played the recurring role of Mary Richards' snobbish, self-absorbed and interfering downstairs neighbor on the program for five years. The role earned her two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She was subsequently featured in a spinoff series, Phyllis, for which Leachman won a Golden Globe Award. The series ran for two seasons. Leachman won a record-setting eight Primetime Emmy Awards and one Daytime Emmy Award, in addition to having been nominated more than 20 times.
File:Mary Tyler Moore Valerie Harper Cloris Leachman Last Mary Tyler Moore show 1977.JPG|thumb|left|Valerie Harper, Leachman, and Mary Tyler Moore in the finale of The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Leachman appeared in three Mel Brooks films including the comedic horror satire Young Frankenstein, in which the mere mention of the name of her character, Frau Blücher, elicits the loud neighing of horses. Christopher Connor of The Film Magazine wrote of her role that it provides "fine contrasts and plenty of comedic moments". She also acted in his thriller spoof High Anxiety as the demented villainess and psychiatric nurse Charlotte Diesel. In the epic satire History of the World, Part I she portrayed Madame Defarge.
In 1977, she guest-starred on The Muppet Show, episode 2.24. In 1978, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theater. Leachman appeared in Disney's The North Avenue Irregulars in 1979, playing the role of Claire. In 1987, she hosted the VHS releases of Schoolhouse Rock! and portrayed the evil witch Griselda for Menahem Golan's Cannon Tales production of Hansel and Gretel. In 1986, she returned to television, replacing Charlotte Rae's character Edna Garrett as the den mother in The Facts of Life. Leachman's role as Edna's sister, Beverly Ann Stickle, continued until the end of the series two years later.