On stage, on television and, finally, in the cinema, he did not miss the irrepressible Cloris Leachman, who died Wednesday at the age of 94. She was a versatile artist who was best known for her flawless comedy. But this same openness gave way to moments of disarming sensitivity and heart.
She was also the rare artist to reach the peak of her career in middle age, with her role as Phyllis Lindstrom on the groundbreaking “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and in her Oscar-winning tour on “The Last Picture Show”. Even decades later, she proved durable enough to cut a rug on “Dancing With the Stars” at age 82 and continued to perform until she was 90.
While some of Leachman’s notable roles are currently not available in the United States, like his striking appearance in the 1955 noir classic “Kiss Me Deadly,” most of his major works are easy to sample. While she is perhaps best known for her collaborations with James L. Brooks, Mel Brooks, and Peter Bogdanovich, Leachman has also thrived in voice work for animated films, including two for Studio Ghibli, and seemed willing to push herself to greater comic book extremes as she went. older. These seven films and three TV series showcase his versatility and moxie.
‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ (1970-1975)
In James L. Brooks and Allan Burns’ groundbreaking sitcom about Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore), a single, independent woman working behind the scenes of a television news program in Minneapolis, Phyllis de Leachman is an agent of chaos, constantly dipped in and overturned. Mary’s day. Phyllis and her invisible dermatologist husband are the owners of Mary and her best friend, Rhoda (Valerie Harper), and she has a tendency to dig into their things, upsetting Rhoda especially with her unsteady arrogance. Leachman’s appearances are heavily weighted toward the show’s first two seasons, but his performance was enough to earn him a few Emmys and the spin-off hit “Phyllis,” which ended the same week as the flagship show.
Leachman won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her earth-shattering performance on “The Last Picture Show,” embodying the sadness and quiet desperation that permeates Peter Bogdanovich’s elegy for a dying town in North Texas. As Ruth Popper, the bored wife of a wacky soccer coach, Leachman plays a southern flower dying on the vine until she joins Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), a high school student of limited sexual experience. . Ruth seems to know her role in Sonny’s coming-of-age story, but she’s still unprepared for the inevitable conclusion, which Leachman records as the latest in a string of disappointments.
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‘Daisy Miller’ (1974)
After following “The Last Picture Show” with “What’s Up, Doc?” and Peter Bogdanovich’s hot series “Paper Moon” ended with this troubled adaptation of Henry James’ novel “Daisy Miller”. But the film’s reputation improved over time, bolstered by its serio-comic treatment of a cheeky American flirt (Cybill Shepherd) in Europe and its trampling on social mores. Leachman’s role as the young woman’s mother carries some of her character’s shyness on “The Last Picture Show,” but here it’s covered in a nervous chatter that’s barely less vulgar and visible in their upper environment.
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‘Young Frankenstein’ (1974)
the run most associated gag starring Leachman in Mel Brooks’ universal monster movie parody requires little play on her part, but it is a testament to her presence as a stern German housekeeper that all the horses neigh in terror every time someone calls out the name by Frau Blücher. Blücher’s roots in Frankenstein’s estate in Transylvania are later explained in hilariously and dramatically, but in the meantime his dedication to the insane vision of Dr. Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) and his monstrous creation (Peter Boyle) is unmatched. . She also stands ready to offer Herr Doctor a cognac before he retires for the night. Or hot milk. Or Ovaltine.
A young Jonathan Demme (“The Silence of the Lambs”) was not quite a graduate of Roger Corman film school when he agreed to direct this low-budget Corman production on short notice. But he and a brassy Leachman, in a rare lead role, play the material for all it’s worth. Although this is a follow-up to the “Bonnie & Clyde” counterfeit “Big Bad Mama”, “Crazy Mama” emphasizes comedy rather than violent chaos as three generations of Stokes women , led by Melba Stokes (Leachman), embark on a crime rolling California Spree to their ancestral home in Arkansas. Nothing about the film (or Leachman’s performance) is underrated, but it has a loving spirit, underscored by a terrific 50s rock soundtrack.
Post it on Amazon Prime Video.
‘Castle in the Sky’ (1986)
Throughout the back half of his career, Leachman was a sought-after vocal talent in animated films, with vocal twists in films like “My Little Pony: The Movie,” “The Iron Giant,” and “Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. But Leachman also contributed substantive work on English dubbing of Hayao Miyazaki’s 2009 fantasy, ‘Ponyo,’ and his groundbreaking film, ‘Castle in the Sky,’ a haunting steampunk adventure about finding a floating castle. As Dola, the bossy leader of a gang of hijackers, Leachman first suggests a threatening opponent. But as more is revealed about Dola’s motives, the hidden nobility of the character turns our heroes (and the viewer).
Post it on HBO Max.
‘Spanglish’ (2004)
Over 30 years after working together on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Leachman and writer-director James L. Brooks have teamed up for this romantic comedy about the relationship between a wealthy and laid-back chef (Adam Sandler) and a mother. single from Mexico who gets a job as a nanny and housekeeper (Paz Vega). Leachman plays the alcoholic mother of Sandler’s nervous wife (Téa Leoni), which mostly gives her the opportunity to throw tangy slings in the midst of a domestic crisis. But she sobers up long enough towards the end of the film to give her daughter some urgent advice, and Leachman’s motherly seriousness at the moment is as touching as it is unexpected.
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‘Malcolm in the Middle’ (2000-2006)
There are undertones of Frau Blücher in the recurring and Emmy Award-winning role of Leachman as Ida Welker, a totally evil grandmother of vaguely European descent who visits every now and then to visit the Wilkersons. , irritating and embarrassing them with its wickedness and bigotry. Leachman appeared periodically in episodes from the second season to the series finale in the seventh, and she brought with her an air of toxic and manipulative narcissism that rivals that of Livia Soprano. In one episode, she chases her own daughter and son-in-law after slipping on a leaf in their driveway; in another, she reveals all the Christmas presents she has decided to take from the family for petty crimes. His cartoonish villainy suits the tone of this cheerful sitcom.
Throughout her career, Leachman was willing to do absolutely anything for a laugh, so she was right at home in this scorching comedy from the Broken Lizard (“Super Troopers”) comedy troupe about a secret competition from the Oktoberfest where teams compete for the supremacy of the beer game. Dressed as Heidi turned seed, Leachman plays Great Gam Gam Wolfhouse, who isn’t ashamed to talk about her past as a prostitute or use a piece of summer sausage to demonstrate a few tricks of the trade. It’s a minor part that’s meant for shock, but Leachman’s lack of shame is utterly disarming, a stark contrast to the rudeness of the brotherhood around him.
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“Raising Hope” (2010-2014)
As the dementia addicted “Maw Maw” in this quirky working-class comedy, Leachman mostly drifts in and out of the background, chain-smoking cigarettes, eating pickles from the jar and sometimes confusing his sound. great-grandson Jimmy (Lucas Neff) for her dead husband. It is only occasionally that Maw Maw is lucid enough to notice that his granddaughter Virginia (Martha Plimpton) and the damn Virginia family are living in his dilapidated house without rent, raising the daughter Jimmy got from an affair. of a night with a serial killer. The role appeals to Leachman as the primary source of his sitcom surrealism, relying on his willingness to play embarrassing flourishes to the hilt.
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