The Kenblog: Remembering Cloris Leachman & Cicely Tyson!

I confess I didn’t watch much of Miss Tyson during her career aside from “Roots” and films like “Fried Green Tomatoes,” but during my research I discovered what an impact she had on both film and television. On a personal note, it will most likely get me to finally see “The Help” which my mother has been on me to see. In a career that has spanned almost eight decades, she started as a model before moving to films and television, making a lasting impact in both. In both films and television, Tyson imbued her characters with a strength a passion combined with honor and class that was truly a rare and entrancing combination. She will be missed!

I was more familiar with the works of Cloris Leachman with both the Mary Tyler Moore Show and later Phyllis being in heavy rotation in my household as a child. When it comes to films, though, her Oscar win for “The Last Picture Show” and her iconic performance in “Young Frankenstein” were benchmarks for me. Her timing in “Frankenstein” is iconic and makes me laugh more than almost any other character.

Of course television was her medium of choice and, like Miss Tyson, continued to work for eight decades right up until the end of her life, winning Emmys for “Malcom In The Middle” and even voicing animated characters in such hits as “The Croods.”

Sassy, strong, intelligent, and immensely talented, these two women leave a hole in the entertainment industry that may never adequately be filled! So Sayeth The Kendog!

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