Cloris Leachman

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Date of Birth : Apr 30th 1926

Academy Award, nine-time Emmy and Golden Globe winning American actress of stage, film and television. She has won eight primetime Emmy Awards more than any other female performer—and one Daytime Emmy Award.

Leachman, the eldest of three sisters, was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the daughter of Cloris and Buck Leachman, who owned a lumber company. She graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1947. She later majored in drama at Northwestern University, where she was a member of Gamma Phi Beta and a classmate of future comic actor Paul Lynde. Leachman began appearing on television and in films shortly after competing in Miss America as Miss Chicago 1946.

After winning a scholarship in the beauty pageant, Leachman studied acting in New York City at the Actors Studio with Elia Kazan. She appeared in the Broadway production of William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba.

She continued to mainly work on television, with appearances including the classic It’s a Good Life episode of The Twilight Zone, in which she played Billy Mumy’s mother; Rawhide; and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Leachman appeared as Ruth Martin, Timmy’s adoptive mom, in the last half of season four (1957) of Lassie. She was replaced by June Lockhart in 1958.