Cloris Leachman is best remembered as the “delightfully neurotic” Phyllis Lindstrom on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” dies of natural causes.
The following written content by Carmel Dagan
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.
Leachman’s pitch-perfect timing and effortlessness in comedy and her unadorned honesty in drama was the result of many years honing her craft and incorporated her own life experiences as a mother of five children (by producer George Englund).
Her open, all-American look took her through several decades in a wide variety of roles on Broadway and early television as well as more than 40 movies, where she moved easily from leading roles to character parts.
The actress won a total of eight primetime Emmys, both for drama and comedy, and one daytime Emmy. Read more from Variety
.
