Cloris Leachman, "The Actress"

We're still thinking about Cloris Leachman (RIP) and we are thrilled to have been pointed at one of her Emmy wins last night (thanks StinkyLulu!) that we hadn't seen. Her fifth (of eight) Emmy wins came in the now defunct category of "Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program" The occassion was the Screen Actors Guild 50th Anniversary Celebration in 1984 and Cloris performs a mini-musical/play called "The Actress". It is very much worth your 10 minutes...

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The Best of Cloris Leachman (1926-2021)

by Nathaniel R

We've lost one of the true greats. The one and only Cloris Leachman has died at 94 years of age of natural causes. The showbiz bug hit early, as it often does with plays as a teenager and by the time she was 20 in 1946 she was a Miss America contestant. Her career developed slowly as many truly enduring careers do, with numerous small roles in film and television (and some large ones onstage) before the big breakthrough. That breakthrough was a double whammy, as befits hard-working but late-breaking fame. In short succession she made a huge impression as Phyllis the landlady on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970/1971 first season and in October 1971 she was also on the big screen, flexing very different acting chops, in the soon to be Oscar-winning classic, The Last Picture Show (1971).  

Though she is best remembered today for television sitcoms which she did on and off throughout her career, she was an actress of verve and versatility...

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Links, Lists, and RIPs

• Vulture perceptive piece on how Ryan Murphy's Netflix deal has amplified his worst tendencies
• THR The Gotenborg Film Festival -- which we've always wanted to go to -- is conducting a bizarre experiment in social isolation and cinephilia
• No Film School Hollywood is shutting down production again

more after the jump including the confusing reporting on the death of Tanya Roberts...

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Joan Micklin Silver (1935-2020)

by Nathaniel R

A appreciative goodbye to the writer/director Joan Micklin Silver who died on New Years Eve at 85 years of age of vascular dementia. Long before elevating female directors was a thing for the media or the industry, she was out there doing her thing. Imagine the lift for female directors in the 20th century to get not one but several films made with little media attention or social justice support. The NY Times has a fine overview of the type of obstacles she faced.

Silver's directorial debut came in the 1970s with the Jewish drama Hester Street which earned a well deserved Best Actress nomination for Carol Kane and a WGA nomination for Micklin herself for Comedy writing -- though what an odd classification that was for the immigrant drama...

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Links

• IndieWire offers up a guide to explaining various characters and events in Mank
• FilmSchoolRejects 20 movies to watch if you loved Mank
• Instagram Elliot Page (Juno, The Umbrella Academy, Inception) has come out as trans
• HuffPost Ariana DeBose is making her (movie) name with the musical resurgence: Hamilton Live, The Prom, and West Side Story

More after the jump including ranking the films of David Fincher, EW's Entertainers of the Year, an imaginary Ratatouille musical, new Emmy rulings, and more...

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