Please don't mistake me, I am not trying to put down Cloris' looks. I am just curious if perhaps Cloris lacked appeal as a leading lady? I think Valerie Harper is gorgeous, but on TMTMS, she was made to look frumpy. When she got her own show, she was glammed up a bit to be the leading lady.

I think Cloris was a very sexy lady both on MTMS and on Phyllis.

Thye made her even more trendy on Phyllis,I think the character's intelligence was dumbed down on Phyllis but no,she was still a highly attractive lady.

In Mary Tyler Moore, I always thought of Cloris Leachman as a schoolgirl. I feel the same way for Phyllis as well. Nowadays, some former schoolgirls have to age into total cookies.

On TMTMS, "Phyllis" appeared (to me) to be an upper-class, well-heeled, cultured, well-read, well-bred, elite woman...sort of a "Jackie Kennedy" type who moved in the best circles. This is why she could get away with putting Rhoda down (Rhoda was so beneath her).

By her own show, she lost that type of persona - now she was subservient to the very elite Judge Dexter and his wife Audrey.