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Kensington
April 2009
On Sale: April 1, 2009
Featuring: Cloris Leachman
384 pages ISBN: 0758229631 EAN: 9780758229632 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
She received two Emmy Awards as the irrepressible Phyllis on
The Mary Tyler Moor Show…she won an Oscar for her
supporting role as a frustrated housewife in The Last
Picture Show…she delighted audiences with her
deliciously villainous turns as Frau Blucher in Young
Frankenstein and Nurse Diesel in High Anxiety…and
she earned even more award nominations playing a
hard-drinking grandmother in Spanglish.
But who, really, is Cloris Leachman? She’s one
of the most acclaimed, and unpredictable, actresses of our
time. Transforming herself with every role, Cloris Leachman
has been dazzling audiences for decades with her unusual
gift for both comedy and drama. She’s appeared in 11
Broadway plays, 57 films, and 137 television shows—and has
earned 16 awards and 23 nominations. Now, for the first
time, the incomparable Cloris Leachman reflects on her
amazing life and illustrious career… From her hometown
in Des Moines, Iowa (where she first saw Katharine Hepburn
perform on stage, never imagining they would one day do
Shakespeare together) to the bright lights of Broadway
(where she had to work up the nerve to sing for Rogers and
Hammerstein to get the lead in South Pacific) to the
television studios of L.A. (where she hopped on producer
James Brooks’s lap to land the role of Phyllis), Cloris’s
journey has been filled with laughter and tears, marriage
and motherhood, tragedy and triumph.
With surprising candor, she talks about her
experiences at the Actor’s Studio, her “Peck’s bad boy”
behavior on the set of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, her
work with Mel Brooks and other filmmakers, her return to
sitcoms with The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Malcolm
in the Middle, and her difficulty shaking off the roles
she immerses herself in. She shares wonderfully revealing
anecdotes about her co-stars and friends: Marlon Brando,
Meryl Streep, Dianne Keaton, Sissy Spacek, Paul Newman,
Steve McQueen, and the Kennedy family. She reveals her
source of inspiration behind High Anxiety (giant fake
breasts) and The Last Picture Show (a disturbing
childhood incident). Finally, she speaks frankly about being
a celebrity icon, trying to balance her family, career, and
boundless creativity energy. This is the real
Cloris Leachman as you’ve never seen her before.
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