Cloris Leachman, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress best known for playing Phyllis Lindstrom onThe Mary Tyler Moore Show,diedWednesday of natural causes. She was 94. In 1974, as an in-demand star and vibrant mother of five, she graced the cover ofPEOPLEmagazine. Read the story below.
Cloris Leachman.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
AP Photo
“We split up every 10 years for a couple of years,” she recounts cheerily. “Now we’re back together again, this time permanently, I think. He said to me, ‘You’re the mongoose to my cobra. You’ve finally worn me down to the point where I can’t think of anything but you.'” Would she prescribe a cobra-mongoose marriage for the folks in the cheap seats? “I think husbands and wives should live in separate houses,” she announces, with a gleam in her gray-green eyes. “If there’s enough money, the children should live in a third.” Then she adds, “The family is the center of my existence. I put all my hopes and caringness and deepest feelings into it. That’s why I feel no resentment at arriving so late as an actress. I chose to have children early, and I don’t regret it.”
So what else is going on in her life, besides being Helpmeet and Mum of the Year in her seven-room house in Mandeville Canyon? Well, she played mother to Cybill Shepherd’s lamentable Daisy Miller. As it turned out, Cloris was the only one to escape from Peter Bogdanovich’s exploded petard without a sliver of shrapnel. Most critics loved her, hated the movie and the star. Says Cloris, “If Peter wanted to make Cybill Daisy Miller, I think we should take the French attitude — vive I’amour. Cybill is an intelligent woman whom I admire, but I think perhaps Daisy Miller might have needed an actress with more levels.”
source: people.com
