Mary Tyler Moore

Biography

Early life

The eldest of three siblings, Moore was born in 1936 in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York to George Tyler Moore and Marjorie Hackett. She moved to California when she was eight years old. She attended Saint Rose of Lima Roman Catholic school in Brooklyn. St. Ambrose School Los Angeles on Fairfax, and the exclusive Immaculate Heart High School in Los Feliz Hollywood, California conducted by the very cutting edge nuns The California Institute of Sisters of the most Immaculate Heart of Mary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (now known as the Immaculate Heart Community).

Career

Television

At the age of seventeen, Moore started off with a role as "Happy Hotpoint" on television commercials broadcast during Ozzie and Harriet. During these commercials she would dance around on the Hotpoint (a General Electric subsidiary) appliances. (Her time as "Happy Hotpoint" ended when her pregnancy, with only child Richard, became too obvious for her to hide any longer, according to Moore in her autobiography.) She later appeared in several bit parts in movies and on TV shows, including Bourbon Street Beat, 77 Sunset Strip, Surfside Six, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Steve Canyon, and Hawaiian Eye. Moore also anonymously modeled on the covers of a number of record albums, and auditioned for the role of the older daughter of Danny Thomas for his long-running hit TV show, but was turned down. Much later, Thomas explained that "no daughter of mine could have that (little) nose." Moore's first regular television role was as a telephone receptionist on the show Richard Diamond, Private Detective; however, in that series, only her legs were ever shown. (She was canned from the show when she asked for a raise, and replaced with another actress, also only visible by her legs [also from Moore's autobiography].)

Moore with Dick Van Dyke, co-star of The Dick Van Dyke Show

In 1961, Carl Reiner cast her in The Dick Van Dyke Show, an acclaimed weekly series based on Reiner's own life and career as a writer for Sid Caesar's television variety show, telling the cast from the outset that it would run no more than five years. Moore's energetic comedic performances as Van Dyke's character's wife, begun at age 23, made both the actress and her signature tight Capri pants extremely popular and she became nationally famous. When she won an Emmy award for her portrayal of Laura Petrie, she said, through her tears, quite incorrectly, "I know this will never happen again!"

In 1970, after having appeared earlier in a pivotal one-hour musical special called "Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman," Moore was cast in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a half-hour newsroom sitcom featuring Ed Asner as her gruff boss Lou Grant, a character that would later be spun off into an hour-long dramatic series. After that popular show ended in 1977, Moore attempted two failed variety series in a row, Mary, which featured a dancing David Letterman in the supporting cast and lasted three episodes, and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour, which was canceled within three months.

About this time, she also made a one-off musical/variety special for CBS, titled "Mary's Incredible Dream", which featured John Ritter, among others; however, it did poorly in the ratings, and, according to Moore, was never repeated and will likely never see the light of day again because of legal problems surrounding the show.

In the 1985-86 season, she returned to CBS in "Mary", which suffered from poor reviews, sagging ratings, and internal strife within the production crew. According to Moore, she asked CBS to pull the show, as she was unhappy with the direction of the program and the producers.

She also starred in the unsuccessful "dramedy", "Annie McGuire", in 1988.

In 2004, Moore reunited with her Dick Van Dyke Show castmates for a reunion "episode" called The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited. In August 2005, Moore guest-starred as Christine St. George, a high-strung host of a fictional TV show on three episodes of Fox sitcom That '70s Show. Moore's scenes were shot on the same soundstage where The Mary Tyler Moore Show was filmed in the 1970s.

Theatre Movies

Since her debut in 1961's X-15, Moore has starred in several feature films, including Ordinary People for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. It was a role that completely shifted Moore out of the lovable characters she has often been associated with, bringing a cold steeliness to a mother who refuses to be supportive to her traumatized son. More recently she portrayed Sante Kimes in the made-for-TV movie Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes. Moore also starred opposite Elvis Presley in the 1969 film Change of Habit. She played a nun (the title is a pun) and Presley portrays a doctor. Also appearing in the film is Moore's future television cast member Ed Asner.

Personal life

In 1955, aged 18, she married Dick Meeker, whom she described as "the boy next door", and was pregnant with her only son Richie (which, coincidentally, was also the name of her TV son on The Dick Van Dyke Show) within six weeks. Meeker and Moore divorced in 1961.

Moore married Grant Tinker in 1962, and in 1970 they formed the television production company MTM Enterprises, which created and produced the company's first television series, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. MTM Enterprises would later produce popular American sitcoms and drama television series such as Rhoda and Phyllis (both spin-offs from The Mary Tyler Moore Show), The Bob Newhart Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, and Hill Street Blues. Moore and Tinker divorced in 1981, and she married Dr. Robert Levine in 1983.

In 1980, Richard Meeker, Mary's only child, accidentally shot and killed himself when the hair trigger on his gun went off - that model gun was eventually removed from the market for that reason. International headlines announced that Meeker killed himself when playing a game of Russian Roulette in front of two female friends, but authorities ruled his death an accident. A few years earlier, Moore's sister committed suicide. Her last remaining sibling, a brother, died of cancer (Moore said that she had helped him end his life with an overdose of painkillers), and her mother, who also suffered from alcoholism, has also died, leaving only her father, George Moore, who lives in California.

Moore has admitted having a drinking problem from the time she starred in The Dick Van Dyke Show until after marrying Levine. Her alcoholism peaked in the 1980s, and Moore entered the Betty Ford Clinic for treatment in 1984. She has been sober since. Her onetime co-star, Dick Van Dyke, also battled alcoholism for many years. Moore maintains an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in a building where great controversy was sparked when the red-tailed hawk nest built by Pale Male was removed in December 2004, an action to which she objected.

She also overcame a years-long addiction to smoking, due in part not only because of her health but because her husband, Robert Levine, had also quit.

Charity work

Mary Tyler Moore presents the JDRF's Hero's Award to U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, for his role in securing federal funding for type 1 diabetes research, 2003

In addition to her acting work, Moore is the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. In this role, she has used her fame to help raise funds and raise awareness of diabetes mellitus type 1, which she has, almost losing her vision and at least one limb to the disease.

Moore is a vegetarian and has worked for animal rights for many years. On the subject of fur, she has said, "Behind every beautiful fur, there is a story. It is a bloody, barbaric story."

She is also a co-founder of Broadway Barks, an annual adopt-a-thon in NYC. Both Moore, and friend Bernadette Peters, work tirelessly to make New York City a no-kill city and to promote adopting animals from shelters.

Moore is a supporter of embryonic stem cell research and said of President George W. Bush's announcement to veto the Senate's bill supporting the research, "This is an intelligent human being with a heart, and I don't see how much longer he can deny those aspects of himself" (see ).

Honors

Statue of Mary Tyler Moore in downtown Minneapolis

In early May 2002, Moore was present as cable TV network TV Land dedicated a statue in downtown Minneapolis to the television character she made famous on Mary Tyler Moore. The statue is in front of the Dayton's (now Macy's) department store, near the corner of 7th Street and Nicollet Mall. It depicts the well-known moment in the show's opening credits where Mary joyfully throws her tam o'shanter cap in the air, in a freeze-frame at the end of the montage.

Fans have noted that the statue takes liberties with that opening scene, for both practical and artistic reasons. One is that where Mary actually tossed the cap was in the crosswalk in the middle of the street-- clearly not the best location for a statue. The other is that the actual release point of the cap was around her waist, whereas the statue has her hand high overhead, barely touching the cap, as if she were catching it instead of tossing it.

Mary Tyler Moore is referenced in the hit song "Buddy Holly" by Weezer on their self-titled debut album. Her name pops up in the chorus in the lines, "I look just like Buddy Holly/And you're Mary Tyler Moore."

TV work

The cast of Mary Tyler Moore

Richard Diamond, Private Detective (cast member in 1959)

The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966)

Run a Crooked Mile (1969)

The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977)

Mary (1978) (cancelled after three episodes)

First, You Cry (1978)

The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979) (canceled after three months)

Heartsounds (1984)

Finnegan Begin Again (1985)

Mary (1985-1986)

Lincoln (1988)

Annie McGuire (1988) (canceled after two months)

The Last Best Year (1990)

Thanksgiving Day (TV series) (1990)

Stolen Babies (1993)

New York News (1995) (canceled after two months)

Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden (1996)

Payback (1997)

Good as Gold (2000)

Mary and Rhoda (2000) (also executive producer)

Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Gimes (2001) (also executive producer)

Miss Lettie and Me (2002)

The Gin Game (2003)

Blessings (TV movie) (2003)

The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited (2004)

That 70's Show (2006)

Film

Moore with her Ordinary People co-stars

Filmography

X-15 (1961)

Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)

What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968)

Don't Just Stand There! (1968)

Run a Crooked Mile (1969) (TV)

Change of Habit (1969)

Ordinary People (1980)

Six Weeks (1982)

Just Between Friends (1986)

Flirting with Disaster (1996)

The Blue Arrow (1996) (voice)

Keys to Tulsa (1997)

Reno Finds Her Mom (1998) (documentary)

Labor Pains (2000)

Cheats (2002)

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