Actress Cloris Leachman has died

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Cloris Leachman, the TV star who received more Emmy nominations than any other actress, died on Tuesday. She was 94.

What was she known for? She played numerous comedic roles on prime-time TV, getting her big break as landlady Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She starred with Gene Wilder in Mel Brooks’ 1974 comedy Young Frankenstein and won a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in 1971’s The Last Picture Show. In the 2018 biopic I Can Only Imagine, Leachman played the grandmother of Christian singer Bart Millard of the band MercyMe. “I am an atheist, absolutely,” she said in an interview about the film. But she said she thought faith was a wonderful thing: “We all believe in something. It’s something or nothing. If you believe in nothing you believe in something.”

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Megan Basham’s review of the film I Can Only Imagine.

Lynde Langdon

Lynde is WORLD’s executive editor for news. She is a graduate of World Journalism Institute, the Missouri School of Journalism, and the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Lynde resides with her family in Wichita, Kan.

@lmlangdon