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Cloris Leachman (April 30, 1926 – January 27, 2021) was an American actress and comedian whose career spanned nearly eight decades. She won many accolades, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards from 22 nominations, making her the most nominated and, along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, most awarded performer in Emmy history. Leachman also won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award.

Born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Leachman attended Northwestern University and began appearing in local plays as a teenager. After competing in the 1946 Miss America pageant, she secured a scholarship to study under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York City, making her professional debut in 1948. In film, she appeared in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971) as the neglected wife of a closeted schoolteacher in the 1950s; she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She was part of Mel Brooks's ensemble cast, playing Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein (1974) and Madame Defarge in History of the World, Part I (1981).

Leachman won additional Emmys for her role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show; television film A Brand New Life (1973); the variety sketch show Cher (1975); the ABC Afterschool Special production The Woman Who Willed a Miracle (1983); and the television shows Promised Land (1998) and Malcolm in the Middle (2000–06). Her other television credits include Gunsmoke (1961), The Twilight Zone (1961; 2003), and Raising Hope (2010–2014). She also acted in the films Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), WUSA (1970), Yesterday (1981), Castle in the Sky (1998), Spanglish (2004), and Mrs. Harris (2005). She wrote her memoir Cloris: My Autobiography (2009).

Early life and education
Leachman was born on April 30, 1926, in Des Moines, Iowa, the eldest of three daughters. Her parents were Cloris (née Wallace) and Berkeley Claiborne "Buck" Leachman. Her father worked at the family-owned Leachman Lumber Company. Her youngest sister, Claiborne Cary, was an actress and singer. Her other sister, Mary, was not in show business. Their maternal grandmother was of Bohemian (Czech) descent. Leachman attended Theodore Roosevelt High School.

As a teenager, Leachman appeared in plays by local youth on weekends at Drake University in Des Moines. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Northwestern University in the School of Education. At Northwestern, she became a member of Gamma Phi Beta and was a classmate of future comic actors Paul