Phyllis Lindstrom Phyllis Lindstrom Phyllis Lindstrom, nee Sutherland, portrayed by Cloris Leachman, is a fictional character on the television sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and subsequent spin-off, "Phyllis". Phyllis Lindstrom is the snobbish, acid-tongued wife of dermatologist Dr. Lars Lindstrom, who is often referenced but never seen by the audience. The Lindstroms manage the apartment building, actually a Victorian boarding house, in which Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mary and Rhoda develop a close relationship with Phyllis' daughter, Bess. Throughout the series, Rhoda and Phyllis maintain an adversarial but talkative relationship. Phyllis understandably despises Sue Ann Nivens,
Play for Today (1971), "The Foxtrot" (1971), "Home" (1972), "Bar Mitzvah Boy" (1976), "Abigail's Party" (1977), "Blue Remembered Hills" (1979) and "Just a Boys' Game" (1979). Certain other well known plays, including "Penda's Fen" (1974), "Nuts in May" (1976), were commissioned by David Rose of the BBC's English Regions Drama department based in Birmingham. Some installments in the series were spun off into full-blown series. Probably the two best-remembered examples of this are "", which was produced as a one-off in the "Play for Today" strand in 1975 and three years later became a series for Thames Television, again with Leo McKern, and