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.

Leachman won Emmys for her role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1975) and a Golden Globe for the spinoff Phyllis (1975–1977), in which she starred.

[citation needed] As a teenager, Leachman appeared in plays by local youth on weekends at Drake University in Des Moines.

[8] At Northwestern, she became a member of Gamma Phi Beta and was a classmate of future comic actors Paul Lynde and Charlotte Rae.

[9][10] After winning a scholarship in the Miss America pageant, placing in the top 16, Leachman studied acting under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York City.

[11] Leachman was slated to play the role of Abigail Williams in the original Broadway cast of Arthur Miller's seminal drama The Crucible.

She also briefly held the role of the mother of "Lassie's" second master Timmy (Jon Provost) until she was replaced late in her only season with the cast by June Lockhart due to contract disputes.

She made her feature-film debut as an extra in Carnegie Hall (1947), but her first real role was in Robert Aldrich's film noir Kiss Me Deadly,[14] released in 1955.

During this period, Leachman appeared opposite John Forsythe on the anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents in an episode titled "Premonition" (1955).

In 1956 she guest starred as "Flory Tibbs", in a complex role as an abused captive on the TV Western Gunsmoke in S2E1's "Legal Revenge".

That same year, she appeared in an episode of One Step Beyond titled "The Dark Room", with Marcel Dalio, in which she portrayed an American photographer living in Paris.

In the drama film The Last Picture Show (1971),[16] based on the bestselling book by Larry McMurtry, Leachman played Ruth Popper, the high-school gym teacher's neglected wife, with whom Timothy Bottoms' character has an affair.

[17] Director Peter Bogdanovich correctly predicted during production that Leachman would win an Oscar for her performance; she won for Best Supporting Actress.

Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote of her performance, "The only real warmth comes from the Leachman ...The film is above all an evocation of mood.

She acted alongside Mary Tyler Moore, Valerie Harper, Ed Asner, Ted Knight, and Betty White.

Leachman played the recurring role of Mary Richards' snobbish, self-absorbed and interfering (but at heart well-meaning) downstairs neighbor on the program for five years.

Leachman appeared in three Mel Brooks films including the comedic horror satire Young Frankenstein (1974), in which the mere mention of the name of her character, Frau Blücher, elicits the loud neighing of horses (an homage to a cinematic villain stereotype).

[24] During this time she worked as a voice actor in numerous animated films, including My Little Pony: The Movie (as the evil witch mother from the Volcano of Gloom), A Troll in Central Park (as Queen Gnorga), The Iron Giant, Gen13, and most notably as the voice of the cantankerous sky pirate Dola in Hayao Miyazaki's 1986 feature Castle in the Sky.

Leachman played embittered, greedy, Slavic Canadian "Grandma Ida" on the Fox sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series (2006).

[26] She took a comedic role as the wine-soaked former jazz singer and grandmother Evelyn in Spanglish (2004) opposite Adam Sandler for which she was nominated for a SAG Award.

She auditioned to revive her role from Young Frankenstein in the 2007 Broadway production opposite Megan Mullally (who replaced Kristin Chenoweth) and Roger Bart.

"We don't want her to die on stage," Brooks (also 81, at the time) told columnist Army Archerd, a statement to which Leachman took umbrage.

[28] However, due to Leachman's success on Dancing with the Stars, Brooks then, doing a U-turn, reportedly asked her to reprise her role as Frau Blücher in the Broadway production of Young Frankenstein after the departure of Beth Leavel, who had succeeded Martin.

[32] Leachman made guest roles in the NBC sitcom The Office, the TV Land series Hot in Cleveland, the CBS drama Hawaii Five-0, and USA Network Royal Pains .

The movie, directed by Valerio Zanoli, stars Karen Grassle and 5 Academy Award winners: Cloris Leachman, Louis Gossett Jr, Tatum O'Neal, George Chakiris, and Olympia Dukakis.

Knowing of the turmoil at the Luft home, but never mentioning it, Leachman prepared meals for the children and made them feel welcome when they needed a place to stay.