Cloris Leachman

Cloris Leachman (April 30, 1926 – January 27, 2021) was an American actress and comedian whose career spanned nine decades. She received many accolades including 22 Primetime Emmy nominations of which she won eight; with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, she is tied for the distinction of most acting Emmy Awards ever awarded to a performer. Leachman also won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award. She was known for her versatility and distinctive physicality, where she used props to accentuate and express her roles' characterizations.

Born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Leachman attended Northwestern University and began appearing in local plays as a teenager. After competing in the 1946 Miss America pageant, she secured a scholarship to study under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York City, making her professional debut in 1948. In film, she appeared in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971) as a neglected 1950s housewife who has an affair with a student of her husband, a high-school gym teacher; she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She was part of Mel Brooks' ensemble cast, playing Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein (1974), Nurse Diesel in High Anxiety (1977) and Madame Defarge in History of the World, Part I (1981).