LOS ANGELES (AP) – Oscar-winning Cloris Leachman for portraying a lone housewife in “The Last Picture Show” and comic delight as the scary Frau Blücher in “Young Frankenstein” and the self-absorbed neighbor Phyllis in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” , he died. He was 94 years old.
Leachman died of natural causes at her home in Encinitas, California, publicist Monique Moss said Wednesday. Her daughter Dinah Englund was with her, Moss said.
An actor of extraordinary character, Leachman defied typography. Early in her television career, she appeared as Timmy’s mother in the series “Lassie”. She played the role of a frontier prostitute in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, a family member in “Crazy Mama” and Blücher in “Young Frankenstein”, by Mel Brooks, in which the very mention of her name attracted equine comments.
“Every time I hear a twisting horse, I will forever think of Cloris’s unforgettable Frau Blücher,” Brooks wrote on Twitter, calling Leachman “crazy talented” and “irreplaceable.”
Greetings from other admiring colleagues were poured on social media. Steve Martin said Leachman “brought the mysteries of comedy to the big and small screen.” “Nothing I could say would exceed the enormity of my love for you,” posted Ed Asner of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. “Applause at every entrance and exit,” said Rosie O’Donnell.
“There was no one like Cloris. At a glance, she had the ability to break your heart or make you laugh until tears ran down your face, “said Juliet Green, her longtime manager, in a statement.
In 1989, Leachman toured in Grandma Moses, a play between the ages of 45 and 101. For three years, in the 1990s, she appeared in the big cities as the wife of the captain in the rebirth of “Show Boat”. In the 1993 version of The Beverly Hillbillies, she took on the role of Irene Ryan as Granny Clampett.
She also had an occasional role as Ida in “Malcolm in the Middle”, winning Emmys in 2002 and 2006 for the show. Her Emmy win over the years totaled eight, including two trophies for Moore’s sitcom, tying her with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the first Emmy winners among performers.
In 2008, Leachman joined the contestants in “Dancing With the Stars”, which did not last long in the competition, but thanked the crowd with her bright dance costumes, perched on the judges’ rounds and sewing during the live broadcast.
She started as Miss Chicago in the Miss America Pageant and willingly accepted unpleasant roles on screen.
“I basically don’t care what I look like, ugly or beautiful,” she told an interviewer in 1973. “I don’t think that’s beauty. In one day, any of us is ugly or beautiful. I have a broken heart, I can’t be the witch in “The Wizard of Oz.” But I would also like to be a good witch. Phyllis combines the two.
“I am just like that in life. I’m magic and I believe in magic. There should be a point in life when you don’t have to stop believing that. I haven’t reached him yet. ”
In the 1950s, Leachman became involved in live TV drama, demonstrating its versatility, including roles that represented the casting standards of the time.
“One week I would be like a Chinese girl, the next like a blond cocoon and weeks later like another dark-haired person,” she recalled. In 1955, she made her film debut in a hot Mickey Spillane saga, “Kiss Me Deadly” – “I was the naked blonde Mike Hammer took on that dark highway.”
It was followed by Rod Serling’s court-martial drama, “The Rack,” and a season on “Lassie.” He continued to play supporting roles on Broadway and in movies, then won the triumph with “The Last Picture Show” by Peter Bogdanovich, based on the novel Larry McMurtry.
When Leachman won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1971, she gave a heartfelt speech thanking the piano and dance teachers and concluded, “This is for Buck Leachman, who paid the bills.” Her father ran a lumber factory.
Despite her photogenic appearance, she continued to be divided into character parts. Her most indelible role was Phyllis Lindstrom in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
Phyllis often visited Maria’s apartment, lamenting her husband Lars and caustic remarks about Maria and especially about her opponent, another tenant, Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper). Phyllis was so unexpectedly hired that Leachman starred in a spinoff series, “Phyllis,” which aired on CBS between 1975 and 1977.
With “Young Frankenstein”, Leachman became a member of the “Mel Brooks Joint Stock Company”, which also appears in “High Anxiety” and “History of the World, Part I.” His other films included Bogdanovich’s “Daisy Miller” and “Texasville,” which reprized its role in “The Last Picture Show.” In 2009, she released her autobiography, “Cloris,” which made tabloid headlines for her story of a “wild” one-night stand with Gene Hackman.
Cloris Leachman grew up on the outskirts of Des Moines, Iowa, where she was born in 1926. The large family lived in a secluded wooden house with no running water, but the mother had ambitious ideas for her children. Cloris took piano lessons at the age of five; as her family could not afford a piano, she practiced drawing the keys on a piece of cardboard.
“I will be a concert pianist,” the girl announced, and her mother encouraged her with reservations at churches and civic clubs. He arranged for Cloris to drive a coal truck to Des Moines for an audition for a student play at Drake University. She received the role and appeared in other plays at a local theater. After high school, he won a scholarship to study drama at Northwestern University.
Of course, a poor student, Leachman lasted only a year. While in the Chicago area, she tried on a Miss Chicago beauty pageant and was chosen. She competed in the 1946 Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, qualifying as a finalist. Her consolation prize: a $ 1,000 talent scholarship.
With a new ambition, he went straight to New York, where he worked as an extra in a film and studied Nina Foch in the hit song “John Loves Mary”.
Several sub-studio jobs followed and he enrolled at Actors Studio to perfect his craft. “I eventually quit because of smoking,” she said later. “I couldn’t stand the blue fog.”
In 1953, Leachman married George Englund, later a film director and producer, and they had five children: Adam, Bryan, George, Morgan and Dinah. The couple divorced in 1979. Son Bryan Englund was found dead in 1986 at the age of 30.
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AP writers Beth Harris of Los Angeles and Hillel Italie of New York contributed to this report.
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Expensive AP Entertainment writer Bob Thomas contributed biographical material to this story.