Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore (December 29, 1936 – January 25, 2017) was an American actress, producer, and social advocate. She is best known for her roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977), which "helped define a new vision of American womanhood" and "appealed to an audience facing the new trials of modern-day existence". Moore won six Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards.

Moore was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Ordinary People. Moore had major supporting roles in the musical film Thoroughly Modern Millie and the dark comedy film Flirting with Disaster. Moore also received praise for her performance in the television film Heartsounds.

Moore was an advocate for animal rights and vegetarianism in addition to her acting career. She was also a significant contributor to causes for diabetes awareness and research. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 33.

Early life

Moore was born December 29, 1936 in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood in New York City, the first child of Marjorie (née Hackett) and George Tyler Moore, a clerk. She had one younger brother, John, and a younger sister, Elizabeth. Moore's paternal great-grandfather, Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Tilghman Moore, owned the house that is now the Stonewall Jackson's Headquarters Museum in Winchester, Virginia. The family was of Irish Catholic descent and Moore was raised Catholic.

Moore spent her early childhood in Flatbush, of which she recalled: "[We] and one other family were the only Catholics in an Orthodox Jewish community where my grandfather owned the house that we would live in." She attended St. Rose of Lima Parochial School in Brooklyn. The family also resided in Flushing, Queens for a time. Moore's parents were both alcoholics, and she and her siblings were sometimes placed in the care of relatives.

The family relocated to Los Angeles, California in 1945 when she was 8 years old, at the recommendation of her uncle, an employee of MCA. Moore attended Saint Ambrose School and Immaculate Heart High School in Los Feliz in Los Angeles.

Moore's sister Elizabeth died at age 21 from a drug overdose. Her brother died at the age of 47 from kidney cancer.

Career

Television

Early appearances

Moore's television career began in 1955 with a job as "Happy Hotpoint", a tiny elf dancing on Hotpoint home appliances in TV commercials that ran during breaks on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. After appearing in 39 Hotpoint commercials in five days, she received approximately $6,000 (equivalent to $57,000 in 2024). She became pregnant while still working as "Happy", and Hotpoint ended her work when it became too difficult to conceal her pregnancy with the elf costume.

Moore was an uncredited photographic model for record album covers, many for the Tops Records label, and auditioned for the role of the elder daughter of Danny Thomas for his long-running TV show, but was turned down. Much later, Thomas explained that "she missed it by a nose ... no daughter of mine could ever have a nose that small".

Moore's first regular television role was as 'Sam' a mysterious and glamorous telephone switchboard operator/receptionist in the series Richard Diamond, Private Detective with David Janssen. Sam's sultry voice was heard talking to Richard Diamond from her switchboard; however, only her legs and occasionally her hands appeared on camera—never her face, adding to the character's mystique. After creating a minor sensation by appearing as Sam in 12 episodes of Richard Diamond as an uncredited player, Moore asked for a raise—and was promptly fired by the show's producers and replaced by Roxane Brooks in the role. However, Moore was able to parlay the publicity from 'revealing' Sam's identity to the press into several flattering articles and profiles, giving her career a boost.

About this time, she guest-starred in John Cassavetes' NBC detective series Johnny Staccato, and also in the series premiere of The Tab Hunter Show in September 1960 and the Bachelor Father episode "Bentley and the Big Board" in December 1960. In 1961, Moore appeared in several big parts in movies and on television, including Bourbon Street Beat; 77 Sunset Strip; Surfside 6; Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen; Steve Canyon; Hawaiian Eye; Thriller and Lock-Up. She also appeared in a February 1962 episode of Straightaway.

The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966)

In 1961, Carl Reiner cast Moore in The Dick Van Dyke Show, a weekly series based on Reiner's own life and career as a writer for Sid Caesar's television variety show Your Show of Shows, telling the cast from the outset that it would run for no more than five years. The show was produced by Danny Thomas's company, and Thomas himself recommended her. He remembered Moore as "the girl with three names" whom he had turned down earlier.

Moore's energetic comic performances as Van Dyke's character's wife, begun at age 24 (eleven years Van Dyke's junior), made both the actress and her signature fitted capri pants popular, and she became internationally known. When she won her first Emmy Award for her portrayal of Laura Petrie, she said, "I know this will never happen again." As Laura Petrie, Moore often wore styles that recalled the fashion of Jackie Kennedy, such as capri pants, echoing an ideal of the Kennedy administration's Camelot.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977)

Moore and husband Grant Tinker successfully pitched a sitcom that centered on Moore to CBS, in 1970, after performing in the one-hour musical special Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a half-hour newsroom sitcom featuring Ed Asner as her gruff boss Lou Grant. The Mary Tyler Moore Show bridged aspects of the Women's Movement with mainstream culture by portraying an independent woman whose life focused on her professional career rather than marriage and family.

The show marked the first big hit for film and television producer James L. Brooks, who also did more work for Moore and Tinker's production company. Moore's show proved so popular that three regular characters, Valerie Harper as Rhoda Morgenstern, Cloris Leachman as Phyllis Lindstrom, and Ed Asner as Lou Grant spun off into their own three separate series playing the same characters, albeit with Lou Grant being an hour-long drama instead of a half-hour sitcom.

The premise of the single working woman's life, alternating during the program between work and home, became a television staple.

The show spent six years in the top 20 of the ratings. The show slipped to number 39 in season seven, . The producers decided that the show should end, afraid that the show's legacy might be damaged if it were renewed for another season. The 1977 season won its third straight Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy despite the decline in the ratings. The program won 29 Emmys and Moore won three awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy in seven seasons. The record was unbroken until 2002, when the NBC sitcom Frasier won its 30th Emmy.

Later projects

Moore appeared in Mary's Incredible Dream, on January 22, 1976, while season six of The Mary Tyler Moore Show was in progress. This show was an experimental musical/variety special for CBS, that also featured Ben Vereen. She described it as "a totally different concept from anything ever attempted on television... We go from song to dance to song and back again, telling a story of the eternal cycle of man. They can just enjoy the music and dancing, if the viewers don't want to follow the story." She starred in a second CBS special, How to Survive the '70s and Maybe Even Bump Into Happiness, in 1978 where she received significant support from a strong lineup of guest stars: Bill Bixby, John Ritter, Harvey Korman and Dick Van Dyke. Moore also starred in two unsuccessful CBS variety series in the 1978–79 season. The first, Mary, featured David Letterman, Michael Keaton, Swoosie Kurtz and Dick Shawn in the supporting cast. CBS brought Moore back in March 1979 in a new, retooled show, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour, after the series was canceled. This format was described as a "sit-var" (part situation comedy/part variety series). Moore portrayed a TV star putting on a variety show. The program lasted just 11 episodes.

Moore returned to CBS in the 1985–86 season in a sitcom titled Mary, which suffered from poor reviews, sagging ratings, and strife within the production crew. Moore said she asked network to pull the show because she was unhappy with the direction and production. Moore also starred in the short-lived Annie McGuire in 1988. Moore returned in 1995, after another lengthy break from TV series work. She was cast as tough, unsympathetic newspaper owner Louise "the Dragon" Felcott on the CBS drama New York News, the third series in which her character was involved in the news media. Moore was disappointed with the writing of her character and was negotiating with producers to get out of her contract for the series when it was canceled.