Cloris Leachman

A former Miss America contestant, Cloris Leachman is an actress with long-standing success in television, film, and stage. Holding a record number of Emmys and the only performer to have earned five in five separate categories, Leachman is a notorious actress whose career has spanned a remarkable five decades.

Cloris Leachman was the eldest child born to Buck and Cloris Leachman of Des Moines, Iowa, on April 30, 1926. She attended high school with former actress Phyllis Love and attended Northwestern University studying drama with would-be comedic actor Paul Lynde. In 1946, Leachman competed in the Miss America competition, where she won a scholarship and began studying at the Actors Studio in New York. She first appeared on Broadway in the production of Come Back, Little Sheba.

Though she first began working in television, her feature film debut was in 1955 in Kiss Me Deadly, directed by Robert Aldrich. The following year Leachman appeared opposite Paul Newman in The Rack. Leachman appeared to prefer television and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she appeared on a number of television shows including Lassie, where she played the role of Timmy’s mother for one season before June Lockhart took over. She also appeared on Gunsmoke and The Twilight Zone.

Leachman won her first Oscar in 1971 for The Last Picture Show and she became the first performer to win an Academy Award while working in television as she was a regular on The Mary Tyler Moore Show at the time. The following decade would find Leachman appearing in guest spots and television movies until she returned to television regularly in 1986 to take over for Charlotte Rae’s Edna Garrett on The Facts of Life.

Other television appearances include The Love Boat, Touched by an Angel, Diagnosis Murder, The Ellen Show, and Two and a Half Men. Leachman most recently played the role of Grandma Ida on FOX’s series Malcolm in the Middle, which garnered her two more Emmys. Recent films include Spanglish where she starred opposite Adam Sandler, Sky High, Scary Movie 4, and HBO’s Mr. Harris, which earned her yet another Emmy nomination.

Cloris Leachman was married to director George Englund for twenty-six years before their divorce in 1979. They had a total of five children together, all of whom work in the entertainment industry. Son George Jr. was married briefly to Sharon Stone. Today, Leachman is a real life grandma to five grandchildren.

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