Cloris Leachman

Cloris Leachman married actor and filmmaker George Englund in 1953. They had five children together: Adam (1953), Bryan (1956-1986), George Englund Jr (1957), Morgan (1963), and Dinah (1966). In the 1950s, Englund had a torrid affair with British actress Joan Collins who one night called Leachman to boast about the relationship. The union, however, survived the infidelity. They eventually divorced in 1979 but maintained a strong connection until his death in September 2017.

She has six grandchildren, including singer Anabel Englund.

In 2009, she published ‘Cloris: My Autobiography’, which she had co-authored with her ex-husband George.

Born on April 30, 1926, in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., Cloris Leachman was the oldest daughter of Cloris Wallace and Berkeley Claiborne Leachman, who worked at the family-owned Leachman Lumber Company. Of English and Bohemian / Czech descent, she had two younger sisters, Claiborne Cary, who was an actress and singer, and Mary.

She studied at the Theodore Roosevelt High School before attending Illinois State University to study drama. She later enrolled at the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where she joined the Gamma Phi Beta sorority.

In 1946, she was crowned Miss Illinois which led to her Miss America appearance. She was a regular performer at the Des Moines Community Playhouse before moving to New York.

Leachman was granted a scholarship for being a contestant in the Miss America pageantry and later took acting classes under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York. She had previously appeared in a production of ‘Blithe Spirit’ in 1943 at the Northwestern University.

Upon completion of the course, her background combined with her inherent talent made her venture into the New York theatre.

Cloris Leachman’s first Broadway appearance was in ‘Sundown Beach’ in 1948. In the 1950 Broadway production of ‘As You Like It’, she played Celia alongside Katharine Hepburn’s Rosalind. She replaced Martha Wright in ‘South Pacific’ (Broadway, 1951), Madeleine Sherwood in ‘The Crucible’ (Broadway, 1953), and Kim Stanley in ‘The Touch of the Poet’ (Broadway, 1958). Moreover, she toured the US with the productions of ‘Grandma Moses: An American Primitive’ (1989) and ‘Slow Boat’ (1994).

After playing minor roles in films like ‘Carnegie Hall’ and ‘Kiss Me Deadly’, Cloris Leachman’s first importance appearance was in the classic western film ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ (1969). In the 1974 drama ‘Daisy Miller’, she portrayed Mrs Ezra Miller, the mother of the eponymous character.

She and Mel Brooks collaborated in three movies. She was cast as the housekeeper Frau Blücher in the 1974 comedy horror ‘Young Frankenstein’, an affectionate and well-made parody of the classic horror film genre in true Mel Brooks style. The movie is generally considered to be one of the greatest comedy films of all time. She also played Nurse Charlotte Diesel in ‘High Anxiety’ (1977) and Dickensian character Madame Defarge in ‘History of the World, Part I’ (1981).

Leachman charmed the audience as the wine-soaked former jazz singer and grandmother Evelyn in the Adam Sandler starrer ‘Spanglish’ (2004). She acted as May Conner in Taylor Hackford’s ‘The Comedian’ in 2016.

She has lent her voice to animated films such as ‘My Little Pony: The Movie’ (1986), ‘The Iron Giant’ (1999), ‘Ponyo’ (2009), and ‘The Croods’ (2013).

In the coming future, she is set to appear in the comedy-drama ‘Lez Bomb’, Netflix comedy film ‘Game Over, Man!’, family-drama ‘I Can Only Imagine’, comedy ‘The Gliksmans’, and the animated feature ‘The Croods 2’.