Legendary actress Cloris Leachman is dead at 94 due to natural causes. Read her obituary at The Hollywood Reporter
Cloris Leachman, the Miss America contestant who won an Oscar for her work in The Last Picture Show, then collected two of her record nine Emmys for playing the quirky Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died. She was 94.
Leachman, the bawdy Iowa native also known for her hilarious turns in the Mel Brooks-Gene Wilder classic Young Frankenstein (1974) and on the TV shows Malcolm in the Middle and Raising Hope, died of natural causes on Wednesday, according to her manager.
Leachman is perhaps best known for playing Mary Richards’ delusional, self-centered landlady Phyllis on the legendary CBS sitcom and then on her own spinoff show in which her character, now a widowed single mother, moved from Minneapolis to San Francisco. The actress received Emmy nominations each year from 1972 through 1976, winning in 1974 and ’75.
Aside from Leachman’s long, storied acting career, at the age of 82, she competed on Dancing with the Stars season 7 in the fall of 2008. She partnered with Corky Ballas, dad to Mark Ballas and was eliminated 6th. Brooke Burke won the season with partner Derek Hough.
Former Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron posted a photo of himself with Leachman on Twitter. “After the universe gave us Cloris Leachman, it broke the mold ? #RIP,” he wrote.
After the universe gave us Cloris Leachman, it broke the mold ? #RIP pic.twitter.com/KNYLCGUqMx
— Tom Bergeron (@Tom_Bergeron) January 27, 2021
