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,
Maude (TV series) program (during the heyday of topical sitcoms, which its presence helped to create), when it was regularly one of the top-ten highest-rated American television programs in any given week. In Great Britain, "Maude" was not shown nationally, although it was shown (beginning in 1975) in the ITV regions of Westward, Border, Tyne Tees, Anglia, Yorkshire, Granada and Channel. Satellite station Sky One ran the series in the early/mid 1990s. In the fifth season, "Maude" unexpectedly plunged from #4 to #31 in the Nielsen ratings as its lead-ins "Rhoda" and "Phyllis" began to struggle. In 1978, late in the sixth season,