Posted on 01/27/2021 2:07:43 PM PST by EdnaMode
Oscar winner and multiple Emmy winner Cloris Leachman, best remembered as the delightfully neurotic Phyllis Lindstrom on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and her own subsequent sitcom, died of natural causes on Tuesday in Encinitas, Calif. She was 94.
“It’s been my privilege to work with Cloris Leachman, one of the most fearless actresses of our time,” her longtime manager Juliet Green said. “There was no one like Cloris. With a single look she had the ability to break your heart or make you laugh ’till the tears ran down your face. You never knew what Cloris was going to say or do and that unpredictable quality was part of her unparalleled magic.”
The daffy, self-absorbed Phyllis, a character she claimed was close to her own persona, brought the actress two Emmys as a featured actress in a series during the mid-’70s and made Leachman a household name.
Leachman also won a supporting actress Oscar in the early part of the decade for a far different character, an embittered small-town housewife in Peter Bogdanovich’s elegiac “The Last Picture Show”; she would later reprise the role in the film’s less successful sequel “Texasville.” Both films were based on the writings of Larry McMurtry.
Overnight success for the actress, however, came only after two decades of hard work in theater, television and some films. Leachman was in her 40s when stardom finally hit.
(Excerpt) Read more at variety.com ...
Was that from some flick made from a Mickey Spillane book? I just saw it recently I think....
Brandy? Warm milk? Ovaltine?
“YAZZZ, HEE VASS MINE BOYFRIEND !!”
One of the greatest lines in all of film!
It makes fun of so many, many things at once.
And don’t forget: I suggest you put on a tie!
Yes, thanks for that. Unmentioned by Variety to my surprise. She is EXCELLENT in that episode. The dad is great too.
Many hollywooders are just personalities.
She was a real actress who could take any part and make the viewer believe the character.
I couldn’t stand Phyllis, but came to like a lot of her works. I came to like her as Phyllis, too.
She also played Thurman Merman’s Grandma in Bad Santa. :P
Another Boomer gone.
Seems like its starting to accelerate.
FUNNY LADY !!! She was such a ham!
Yes, that is true..
Thanks for the correction.
She had a small role in “The Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” as a cat lady. Don’t be a cat lady if there is a zombie outbreak! The movie’s humor is pretty rough, but I laughed quite a bit.
Yes....opening scenes from Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Yes— that was her “Last Picture Show”-— character in that one of the most depressing sad as hell individuals. Entire film one giant defeatist anti-rural America corrupted small town— ever put out by hollyweird.
It was an important movie (and book) for its time and kickstarted the careers of numerous actors and actresses. It to some extent exgerrated small town Texas but I did not see the setting as corrupted, rather dreary. There were a lot of characters who tried to do the right thing with Ben Johnson in the best role of his career playing a very heroic part. Lot of truth in that movie and—being from rural Texas—was blown away when I first saw it.
I have seen her in some old tv shows from 60 years ago and she was pretty attractive. Of course who can forget her in “Young Frankenstein “, as Frau Blucker!
Another Boomer gone. Seems like its starting to accelerate.
I agree that “The Last Picture Show” was outstanding.
Blucher, auf Deutch, means 'glue.'
“Fearless?” Seriously? How much courage does it take to be a lousy actor?
LOL! I was watching, on TV, that movie (kiss Me Deadly [1955]). My wife heard the first sounds in opening of the movie and came down to see if I was watching a porno film!
Saw that last week!
Second Lassie family wasn’t it?
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