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Oscar-and-Emmy winning actress Cloris Leachman dead at 94

Actress Cloris Leachman, best known as Mary's zany and nosy neighbour Phyllis in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, is dead at age 94.

The actress passed away at home in California of natural causes on Tuesday.

Leachman got her start in entertainment with parts in the 1950s in TV shows Lassie and Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the movie The Rack.

In 1969, she played a prostitute in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

She even won the Academy Award for best supporting actress in 1972 for her embittered housewife role in The Last Picture Show.

But it was as meddlesome and kooky Phyllis on The Mary Tyler Moore Show sitcom in the 1970s that Leachman truly became a star and household name.

It also resulted in a short-lived spin-off called Phyllis, of course.

Playing Phyllis would also launch her string of Emmy wins with two trophies in the mid-1970s.

In fact, Leachman would garner eight Emmys in total, a record she shares with Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld and Veep fame for the most acting Emmys.

Two more Emmys came in the 2000s for Leachman as the feisty grandma on the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle.

Leachman became a vegetarian in the 1950s, long before it was a fad, and was a lifelong animal rights activist.

Her last acting role was as the voice of a cavewoman in the 2020 animated sequel The Croods.



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