Cloris Leachman

Cloris was also the first Ruth Martin (Timmy's adopted mother) on "Lassie," but was fired after one season and replaced by June Lockhart, playing the same character.

First film role was in *Kiss Me Deadly*. Played the desperate woman running down the highway naked in the middle of the night.

But to me her triumphant role—even more than Frau Blücher—was Nurse Diesel in *High Anxiety*. Her dining hall monologue (not in this clip) is a tour de force.

Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.

I think Leachman always saw herself as a character actress. After winning an Oscar, she wasn’t gonna go off and be a leading lady in films. It paid off with her 9 Emmy wins. It’ll be interesting to see what Allison Janney does (I believe this generations Leachman) with one Oscar and many Emmys. Of course Janney is incredible looking for her age so she might find a longer niche in films than Leachman did.

Leachman worked in films consistantly throughout her career....as she did in television. Its all about the work. She loves it and is still working in both mediums today at age 92.

OP, I watched an interview with MTM and she said Cloris was always in demand in the industry so when she appeared on The MTM Show she was always credited as a guest star. They would have loved to have had her on contract but she wouldn't commit full time to the show.

Does Shirley Booth count? She won an Oscar and went on to Hazel.

R6 I stand corrected. I thought her theatrical films pretty much ended in the 70s, but her IMDb is full of ones she did that I forgot.

r5 I couldn't believe she has that many Emmys so I looked it up. What was the "Screen Actors Guild 50th Anniversary Celebration" and what exactly did she do in it that was so Emmy-worthy?

R8 No. She was the lead in that series. Can’t include Helen Hunt or Allison Janney either. Miyoshi Umeki is a good choice. Played a supporting role in Courtship of Eddies Father.

Estelle Parsons on Roseanne?

R10 some actors are Emmy magnets and can do no wrong. She probably did nothing special or unique, but they show up, film something and they end up winning eventually. Nowadays it’s Julia Louis Dreyfuss.

I think Ops point was actors that while doing a series in a supporting role they end up winning an Oscar. Leachman might be unique in this since Janney is pretty much lead in Mom nowadays. At least that’s how submitting herself for Emmy wins.

R11 Miyoshi Umecki used to be a frequent contributor to Data Lounge. Do a search.

R14 how she’s

He!

Vas!

My!

BOYFRIEND!

A national treasure. Funny funny woman.

A real talent, always taking risks, always excellent.

Agreed, R18, she is truly a national treasure. Always a treat to see, whatever the role.

Frau Blucher.

Singing about social diseases

You can't have a Cloris tribute without including this: One of the greatest opening credit song and sequence of any sitcom EVER!....

Well, I sort of qualify.

Don't you forget about me.

R5 Janney has never been attractive ; Leachman May well have uglied and frumped herself for a bunch of character roles, but she was inherently an attractive/pretty woman.

Phyllis...one of the best characters ever. On "The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the best television show ever.

Interesting (at least I think it’s interesting, anyway) Cloris Leachman factoid: She was originally cast as the sexy boarder Marie in the Broadway-bound “Come Back, Little Sheba” with Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer, but left the show to do a play with Katharine Hepburn.

Thanks r23 that really lived up to the hype. What a great campy takeoff of the MTM theme.

Destroyed any cinematic accolades and a stellar reputation by appearing in “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.” That fucking bomb grossed a total — TOTAL — of $3.7 million. Even the brain-damaged, mouth-breathing cretins it was aimed at avoided it like the plague. Leachman should be eternally mortified.

I saw her interviewed once. She's one of these actresses who just lives to work. She almost never watches television and sees very few movies. She's seen very few of her own performances. She just moves from one acting gig to the next.

R29 here again one thing I forgot to mention - I thought she had the bowl haircut on Phyllis? When did she get that cut if not during the show’s run? It was awful.

Is she still working and in the public eye how’s her health do we know?

R32 Second season.

For R32... her IMDB page. Looks like she's still working....

[quote]some actors are Emmy magnets and can do no wrong

FUCK YOU

She began as a Miss Chicago.

KISS ME DEADLY (1955)

Her autobiography is called My Autobiography. It's as if she was channeling Phyllis.

Is said to be envious of Betty White's sweet old lady popularity.

Don't forget "The North Avenue Irregulars", which features Phyllis in a truly inspired role as the rich, church-going spinster turned spy. The movie also features DL fave Susan Harris and hunky Edward Herrmann. It's a Disney movie, but I fucking love it.

She was magnificent in a film-for-TV made in the late 60s or early 70s: "Ladies of the Corridor", based on a Dorothy Parker short story. Romantic, touching, moving...

R39 I think that’s a bit of a media creation as they were/are basically the only two old broads still living and working and making the talk show rounds (plus they were on the same show).

All that said I would have much rather had Leachman’s career.

R40 I think you meant to say DL faves Susan Clark and Barbara Harris were in The North Avenue Irregulars?

Thanks, R43, for the correction! See? THIS is what happens when I type sober.

Oh fuck her, she ruined my show

R15, are you referring to the delicate, some would even say flowerlike Miyoshi Umeki?

R22, thank you for reminding us of that perhaps greatest of all Datalounge tv movie discoveries—one of the many things that could only have been produced by the 70s.

Phyllis was such a great forgotten show - Jane Rose and Henry Jones!

Cloris with Timmy and Lassie, 1957.

[R36]

In the Miss Chicago photo, she looks like a cross between Gloria Graham and Lauren Bacall.

I always enjoyed Mother Dexter.

She was fantastic as the cruel grandmother on Malcolm In the Middle.

Clorox Bleachman

It was Shakespeare, r28! Ladies of the Corridor was a play, r41, not a short story.

Chloris just wants to work!

Ugh, Cloris, I meant.

Her Broadway Nellie was one for the ages, I'm sure.

I am 40 and I rwally only know her as the Mrs. Garrett replacement on Facts of Life.

Wow,th that opening from r23 looks like it was shot yesterday,when Leachman was in her mid forties. How time flies to be nearly a century old now...

LOL...no offense, R58, but I am curious how old you are. The film quality at R23 looks to me like it’s from around 1976.

Her Sis......

I saw a summer stock production of "No No, Nanette" with Cloris's sister in the Helen Gallagher role. Nanette Fabray played the Ruby Keeler part, and the title role was played by DL fave Bonnie Franklin, post-"Applause" and pre-"One Day at a Time." Nanette and Bonnie went on to play mother and daughter on the series, of course.

I heard she was a real bitch to coworkers. An ounce overweight and she'd be after you to drop pounds.

I adore Cloris Leachman. Her Oscar winning performance in The Last Picture Show is one of the most deserved ever and her Nurse Diesel is pure comic genius.

Didn’t she get into a huge kerfluffle with her neighbor, Jim Belushi.

Cloris laments.....

[R62]She abhors fat people. I read a quote from her once in which she said that people who are overweight "pollute the aesthetic environment."

Was she mean to Natalie on the Facts of Life set, R66? Did George Clooney defend her?

Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. I have always thought of Leachman as a homely supporting television character actress, R62, R66.

I loved her in the TV Movie of the Week thriller, Dying Room Only (Valerie Harper was in the other great TV movie thriller, Night Terror).

The title sequence for Phyllis is very funny, but it opens with a clip of men in blackface! Yikes.

She’s one for the “handsome women” thread.

R71 Most definitely!

I

It all depends on how she wears her hair......

I wish "Phyllis" would get released on DVD. I loved that show.

That "blackface" opening to the Phyllis theme song was actually a clip taken from the MGM movie Babes on Broadway from 1941 in which Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney do an entire number in blackface. 1941 was a different time than 1975 but apparently not THAT different.

R75 Blackface was an uncontroversial part of a hit music video in the mid-80s. Cultural norms turn on a dime.

R67 to say nothing of all the other FOL girls...

I read somewhere that Timothy Bottoms thought Cloris was homely and hated having to make love to her onscreen.

Timothy does what, now?

[quote]Timothy does what, now?

Can't you read? He bottoms.

I also remember very impressed with the PBS production of “Ladies of the Corridor”. Besides Leachman, it featured fine performances by Zohra Lampert and a surprisingly chilling Jane Wyatt.