Cloris Leachman, who won an Oscar for her role in the bleak coming-of-age movie The Last Picture Show and Emmy awards during a prolific television career that stretched back to the The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died at her home in Encinitas, Calif.
While the Emmy-winning Leachman was best known for her TV roles on
Mary Tyler Moore Show, the CBS series
Phyllis, a starring role in later seasons of the NBC sitcom
The Facts of Life and a stint on
Dancing with the Stars as the oldest celebrity contestant in the show s history, her greatest job was being a mother to her five children. She loved her children and her grandchildren ferociously, Leachman s longtime manager Juliet Green said in a statement after her death, per NBC News.
By the time she appeared on
The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the early 1970s, Leachman already was a mom to five children with her ex-husband, film director George Englund, whom she married in 1953 and divorced in 1979, according to
Copy to Clipboard Actress Cloris Leachman and her son George Englund Jr (Getty Images)
Cloris Leachman, an icon in the acting industry, died on January 26, 2021, in Encinitas, California, due to natural causes at the age of 94 with her daughter Dinah by her side. Born on April 30, 1926, in Des Moines, Iowa, the American actress and comedian worked with Des Moines Playhouse by the age of 11 and by 17 had a radio show that catered to women s style. She graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School before studying drama at Illinois State University, and later at Northwestern University.
Cloris Leachman shows off her Oscar for her performance in The Last Picture Show before attending the 75th Oscar presentations on March 23, 2003, in Brentwood, California (Getty Images)
Cloris Leachman, who won an Oscar for her role in the bleak coming-of-age movie “The Last Picture Show” and Emmy awards during a prolific television career that stretched back to