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Cloris Leachman
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More from TimeoutCloris Leachman
Personal: The veteran actress of TV, film and stage is 81 and lives in Brentwood. She and ex-husband George Englund had five kids — Adam, Bryan, George Jr., Morgan and Dinah. Bryan died from a drug overdose in 1986.
Statue count: One Oscar and nine Emmys (eight prime time and one daytime), plus a Golden Globe award and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award. She keeps them on a ledge in the loft above her dining room.
Memorable roles: Leachman won an Oscar for her role as Ruth Popper in 1971's "The Last Picture Show." On the big screen, she also played Frau Blücher in "Young Frankenstein" (1974) and Nurse Diesel in "High Anxiety" (1977). On television, she played Phyllis in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (1970-77) and the spin-off show "Phyllis" (1975-77), and Grandma Ida in "Malcolm in the Middle" (2001-06).
Back on the boards: Leachman's at work on her one-woman show "Cloris!," which she brings to Ojai this weekend. She plans to take it to her hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, next month before embarking on an 11-city tour that ultimately will take her to Chicago, Los Angeles and her old New York stomping grounds. Englund is the show's writer-director.
Coming soon: A remake of "The Women" with Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Jada Pinkett Smith, Annette Bening, Bette Midler and others is due out this fall. "We are so excited about it," Leachman said, "all these wonderful, talented women working together." She'll also be seen in "American Cowslip" with Val Kilmer, Diane Ladd, Rip Torn and Peter Falk. "It's a very interesting, odd little picture," Leachman noted. "It's really good."
Of note: Studied drama at Northwestern University. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Drake University in Des Moines in 2006.
Of note II: Was Miss Chicago 1946 and a finalist in the Miss America pageant that same year.
Quote: Of Leachman's penchant for zany characters, Englund said, "There's no rationale to it. The better question might be, How did she ever get considered for those roles?'"
— Brett Johnson
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