Cloris Leachman, award-winning Mary Tyler Moore Show star, dies at 94
Cloris Leachman, the award-winning actress known for such roles as Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died at 94.
Leachman died from natural causes at her home in California on Tuesday, Variety reported.
The beloved actress rose to fame while portraying landlady Phyllis on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time, in the 1970s. She won two of her eight Primetime Emmy Awards for the role, which she reprised in the spinoff, Phyllis, and she's tied with Julia Louis-Dreyfus for most acting honors at the Emmys, NBC News reports.
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Leachman also won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1972 for her performance in The Last Picture Show, and the long list of her other memorable work includes Young Frankenstein and Malcolm in the Middle, with the latter winning her two additional Emmys in the 2000s. In 2011, she was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame — and Variety notes that at age 82, she became Dancing With the Stars' oldest contestant in 2008.
"Cloris Leachman was a comedy legend," the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tweeted Wednesday. "From a groundbreaking role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show to the films of Mel Brooks and her Oscar-winning turn in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, she never lost her ability to shock, delight and surprise us. She will be missed."
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