Leachman’s pageant detour helped get her ready for the next stage of her career
By: PEOPLE Staff Writer
April 30, 2026
Cloris Leachman lived a full and amazing life.
The actress, who would have turned 100 today, had a way of finding the spotlight before she devoted herself to the stage and screen. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, on April 30, 1926, Leachman hitchhiked a coal truck, with her mother’s encouragement, to nearby Drake University, where she auditioned for and won a part in a children’s radio show at just 11 years old.
At 15, Leachman won a special summer drama scholarship to Northwestern University, where she’d later return as an undergraduate. There, she won the school’s best actress award in her sophomore year.
As she continued to get compliments about how she shone on stage, Leachman decided to try a beauty pageant. Not only did she secure the title of Miss Chicago in 1946, but she also went on to the 20th Miss America competition in Atlantic City.
Leachman’s talent was a comic sketch named “One Man Radio Program,” which, combined with her beauty and other talents, helped her make her way to the Top 16. While she didn’t advance beyond that, Leachman told PEOPLE in 2008 that the experience was “really fun.”
“You had to get yourself together — do your own makeup, your own hair and what you were going to wear. My mother was with me the whole time. My father came the last two days [of the competition],” she shared.
The pageant was a formative experience that provided Leachman with a $1,000 scholarship. With her eye on her future, Leachman used the money to relocate to New York City, where she enrolled in the Actors Studio. There, she studied under acting coach Elia Kazan.
Leachman reflected on that time in her life during an interview with Pioneers of Television.
“When I was in the Actors Studio, I was in the very first group that Elia Kazan picked. When I first went to the address, there were a lot of people there. And a little girl, a thin little girl, I thought, ‘Oh, if I could just take her home with me and raise her.’ It was Julie Harris. She was wonderful in the Actors Studio. Jack Warden, Eli Wallach, so many actors that you’ve enjoyed and loved were in that class.”
Pictured: Miss Cloris Leachman gets a boost from runners-up Midge Faulkner, left, and Pat Verner after she won the title “Miss Chicago” in Chicago on Aug. 9, 1964. Leachman, a resident of Evanston, Ill., won the right to participate in the Miss America contest in Atlantic City, N.J.
AP
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