She starred on 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' and on her eponymous sitcom, two of most acclaimed comedies ever, then acted against type to earn an Oscar nom for 'Ordinary People.'

Link (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mary-tyler-moore-dead-actress-719799)

Mary Tyler Moore, whose roles as a perky housewife on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s and as a spunky, single working woman in her eponymous ’70s sitcom made her America’s sweetheart, has died. She was 80.

Moore played opposite her TV persona and received an Oscar nomination for her performance as an icy mother struggling to connect with her son in Robert Redford’s best-picture winner Ordinary People (1980).

The six-time Emmy Award winner had elective surgery in May 2012 to remove what is known as a meningioma, or benign tumor of the lining tissue of her brain.

Moore starred opposite Dick Van Duke as suburban stay-at-home mom Laura Petrie from 1961-66, then played Mary Richards — a hard-luck loser in love who moves across the state to Minneapolis and gets a job at local TV station WJM for the 6 o’clock news — from 1970-77.

The latter represented a bold move for a series’ main character to be an independent, never-married woman, and Moore became an icon for the feminist movement.

A native of Brooklyn who came with her family to Los Angeles when she was 8, Moore aspired to be a dancer. Her first big break came when she was cast as a dancing kitchen appliance — Happy Hotpoint, the Hotpoint Appliance elf — in commercials.

That led to appearances on several TV shows, including 1957’s Richard Diamond, Private Detective, in which Moore played Diamond's (David Janssen) sultry answering service girl. Her legs were shown, but never her face.

Moore had auditioned for the role of the older daughter on The Danny Thomas Show (also known as Make Room for Daddy) but failed to get the part (Thomas reportedly said that no daughter of his could have a nose that tiny). However, Thomas recommended Moore to Carl Reiner in 1961 when he was casting The Dick Van Dyke Show, the CBS series that was based on Reiner’s life and career as a writer for Sid Caesar's TV variety shows.

Moore started on The Dick Van Dyke Show at age 23 (she was 11 years younger than her male co-star). Often wearing capri pants instead of a dress — that caused quite a stir at the time — she took care of their young son Ritchie (Larry Mathews) and the house in New Rochelle, N.Y., while Van Dyke’s character, Rob, worked on a sitcom in Manhattan.

Moore won Emmys in 1964 and 1966, and the show collected 15 trophies in all.

In 1970, Moore and her second husband, Grant Tinker, a former ad executive and vp at Fox Television (and later chairman of NBC), pitched The Mary Tyler Moore Show to CBS. On the series, created by James Brooks and Allan Burns, Moore’s character has hundreds of dates but never finds true love. The premise of the single woman, alternating between work and home, would become a TV staple.

With the darling Moore as the centerpiece of an outstanding ensemble, the show was a ratings hit and won a then-record 29 Emmys, and she took home the best comedy actress trophies in 1973, 1974 and 1976. The sitcom, which closed with a third straight Emmy for best comedy series, anchored CBS' Saturday night lineup that also included All in the Family, M*A*S*H and The Carol Burnett Show.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show also spawned shows starring Ed Asner (Lou Grant), Cloris Leachman (Phyllis) and Valerie Harper (Rhoda), all produced by Moore and Tinker’s company, MTM Enterprises.

MTM, which was sold to a British company for $320 million in 1988, also produced such series as The Bob Newhart Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere.

Moore and Tinker divorced in 1981, and she moved to New York City.

Two late-'70s efforts at a variety show followed and failed: Mary, which featured David Letterman and Michael Keaton, and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour, a backstage show within a show. In 1985, she returned to CBS in another series titled Mary, but that lasted just 13 episodes, and she played the title character in the short-lived 1988-89 comedy Annie McGuire.

For Ordinary People, his directorial debut, Redford cast Moore as Beth Jarrett, a frighteningly cold suburban mother who can't forgive her teenage son for living after his brother (her favorite son) dies.

Of Moore’s performance, Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote: "(She) is remarkably fine, simultaneously delicate and tough and desperate.” The film won four Oscars, including one for Redford.

Moore had a film contract with Universal early in her career. She appeared in such movies as X-15 (1961), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968), Don’t Just Stand There! (1968), Change of Habit (1969) opposite Elvis Presley, Six Weeks (1982) and Just Between Friends (1986).

In more recent years, Moore was seen on television in guest-starring roles on That '70s Show, Lipstick Jungle and Hot in Cleveland. She won her sixth Emmy for her performance in the 1993 miniseries Stolen Babies.

MTM Enterprises produced several Broadway plays, and she appeared on the stage in Whose Life Is It Anyway?, which opened on Broadway in 1980, ran for 96 performances and earned her a special Tony Award, and Sweet Sue, which bowed in 1987 and lasted 164 performances.

Moore wrote two autobiographies, which revealed the turmoil in her life. The first, released in 1995, acknowledged that she was an alcoholic, and the second, published in 2009, concentrated on living with diabetes.

Richie, her son with first husband Dick Meeker, died of an accidental and self-inflicted shotgun wound in 1980. He was 24. Two years earlier, her sister, Elizabeth, died at age 21 from a drug overdose. And her brother, John, died of liver cancer in 1992 at age 47.

Moore was married three times, the last time to cardiologist Robert Levine. He survives her.

This is terrible. :( I can't believe she's gone. :rip: Mary

I'm very sad about this. I remember being a kid and watching CBS on Saturday night. MTM was one of the biggest shows that night. She was so beautiful. So sad. At least she's no longer in pain. I know she suffered for years. R.I.P. Mary. :(

That was a huge surprise. Can we merge the other thread on her death with this one.

Hi everyone.

I just had to come to send my condolences to the late great Mary Tyler Moore! During my teenage years, though the show's first run has come and gone in the late 90's. I was a Nick at Nite watcher, and loved the show! Me and Crystal Bell, with whom I know because of this message board, and still chat with her, and visit her from time to time, loved Mary Tyler Moore (she can't remember her SO credentials anymore), and she sends her love, too!

MTM was one of the reasons how I was obsessed with sitcoms during my teenage years, which sort of brought me to this site as RainMan.

RIP, MTM.

*meow*!

That was a huge surprise. Can we merge the other thread on her death with this one.

What other thread? The one I started earlier has been requested to be deleted due to an error.

My mom and I are crying like we lost a family member. :(

The only other times I have had this kind of emotional reaction to a celebrity death was when Lucille Ball and Gilda Radner died.

I will say I thought her often in the last few years knowing how ill she had been and I am glad she is relieved of her suffering.

You know you are a big deal in showbiz when your death is "breaking news". :)

She was and will remain a legendary figure in television and gave one of the all time great performances in "Ordinary People".

May God rest her soul. :)

Mary Tyler Moore was truly a special person. I've read a couple of her books and she was really a caring person. She, like most of us, has endured a lot of hard times during her life but she always came through them. She is now at peace and with her son.

R.I.P. Mare. :(

I should have waited before posting the "Mary's in grave condition" thread. It's hard to know what's going to happen.

This article reveals some things I didn't know about Mary. She had a tragic life in many respects, but she rose above it all. Pure class and beauty.

http://www.eonline.com/news/824373/mary-tyler-moore-dead-at-80-sitcom-star-became-the-iconic-independent-career-women

This one hurts ... bad. We have lost one of the great ones but her body of work will live on and will continue to be a role model for all. Love you, Mary ... you made it afterall.

very sad, she will be greatly missed :rip:

What other thread? The one I started earlier has been requested to be deleted due to an error.
Well, yes. But there were two other messages that I though should've been moved.

ME-TV is having a MTM tribute on Sunday.

http://metv.com/stories/metv-honors-mary-tyler-moore

Ed Asner

https://twitter.com/TheOnlyEdAsner/status/824342329553096704

Cloris Leachman

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/01/mary-tyler-moore-cloris-leachman-tribute

“My heart goes out to her husband, Robert,” Leachman wrote, continuing, “he was never more than a touch away from her. The picture that we all have of her, that’s how she was—sweet, kind, so tender, so delicate. She was America’s sweetheart. Valerie [Harper] and I always had to rehearse and rehearse to work things through, but Mary was always ready to go, thoroughly prepared. The last time I saw her was our Hot In Cleveland reunion. I had a feeling I wouldn’t see her again. If I could see her one last time, I’d hold her in my arms and say, We loved you.”

Rest in peace.

I know she had health issues and she was 80, but it's still a shock. :( She was truly a tv icon who starred in 2 of most beloved sitcoms of all time by the age of 40 which is quite an achievement. Seems like we've lost a lot of celebrities last year and this year isn't looking too good either. R.I.P. Mary.

Awful and shocking news.:( May she rest peacefully.

http://deadline.com/2017/01/mary-tyler-moore-cbs-primetime-special-thursday-1201894305/

CBS To Honor Mary Tyler Moore With Primetime Special Thursday
by Lisa de Moraes
January 25, 2017 3:28pm



UPDATED with rebroadcast of PBS documentary: CBS said this afternoon it will air a special one-hour CBS News tribute to Mary Tyler Moore, who died today at 80.



Gayle King will anchor Mary Tyler Moore: Love Is All Around, to air at 9 PM ET. And yes, Oprah Winfrey will be among those who weigh in, though she was not involved in any of Moore’s iconic TV series and there are still plenty of people around who were. Some of those presumably will participate in the special, though CBS News did not name any of them.

PBS, on the other hand, said its stations will rebroadcast Mary Tyler Moore: A Celebration in honor of the TV icon. The documentary, which first aired in 2015, commemorates Moore and her 50-plus-year career,and features names such as Dick Van Dyke, Betty White, and Valerie Harper, who actually were involved in Moore’s life and work. Check local PBS stations for details.

CBS took guff in some quarters today when it briefly interrupted its daytime schedule for Scott Pelley to report that Moore had died. Moore was a huge CBS star, including her roles as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s, and as the single woman with a career in TV journalism on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the ’70s.

CBS News said the special will “mine CBS’ vast archives ” and include “interviews with Oprah Winfrey, newsmakers, admirers and others.”

Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer of the CBS special.

Someone posted here a few months ago that she was in grave condition so this was not a surprise. What a contrast it is with the classy stars of what is now the golden age of television with the smarmy crap there is today. I might start to watch the CBS special but I doubt it will do her justice. That smile that turned the world on will never dim for those of us that grew up watching her.

I remember watching the Mary Tyler Moore show when I was a kid.
I actually did not understand a lot of the plots because the dialogue was more for grown ups to understand . Back then I did not know anything about it being a "groundbreaking" sitcom featuring a single woman who works rather than a married mother who stays home. It seemed to nevertheless depict the main character as a typical female in certain ways.
I loved the theme song. It sounded like the kind of song that is just meant to be nostalgic .
I am sorry to hear that Mary Tyler Moore died , but I heard she was struggling with health issues.
I also heard long ago that her son killed himself.
Mary Tyler Moore's most known role became a most iconic one in TV history as did the theme song and the very last scene of the opening tune in which she throws her hat up in the air.
It seems that no other TV character left such a lasting image.

RIP Mary Tyler Moore. You brought joy into a lot of people's lives.

http://www.vulture.com/2017/01/mary-tyler-moore-one-of-tvs-greatest-auteurs.html

Mary Tyler Moore was a cultural giant who carried herself with a dancer’s grace. She died today at 80, leaving behind a transformed TV landscape, more hospitable to wry, subtle character comedy and more respectful of the emotional lives of women. In a medium still dominated by men, covered by a press corps that still seems inclined to look for the next brooding and obsessive male auteur, we shouldn’t forget that Moore was an auteur herself, and one of the most important in TV history. Her acting career blazed new trails for women in the entertainment industry, and her work as a producer helped popularize TV sitcoms and dramas that weren’t plot- or even gag-driven, but built around characters’ emotions and needs. The astonishing evolution of scripted television in the last 20 years was preceded by the work of figures like Moore. When her most famous character, Mary Richards, tossed her hat in the air in the opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77), the medium instantly warmed to her sunbeam smile; over the next decade and beyond, her example liberated television in ways that it has only begun to understand.

Moore’s landmark star vehicle was preceded by her stint on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–66), a sitcom set against the world of New York comedy programming. She played Laura Petrie, the goofy yet supremely elegant wife of Van Dyke’s comedy writer Rob Petrie. On both that series and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, set at a Minneapolis news station, Moore presented audiences with a new female image: the kindhearted but resilient urban sophisticate, smart and sexy and funny, slightly neurotic and a bit of a kook. We take that type for granted now — 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon has her own peculiarities, but functionally she’s Mary Richards running Saturday Night Live — but it felt bracingly new at a time (the 1960s and ’70s) when sitcoms tended to define female leads as girlfriends, wives, or mothers first.

Her chemistry with Van Dyke was so extraordinary that it ruled out any possibility of the show turning into a more urbane riff on I Love Lucy, a great sitcom in its own right, but one often predicated on making its star and co-executive producer, Lucille Ball, into the butt of jokes as her character, homemaker Lucy Ricardo, tried to wheedle into her bandleader husband’s glamorous showbiz life. The Petries, in contrast, were equals in every way except financially. And the show’s creator, writer-actor Carl Reiner, kept contriving reasons to have them do comedy routines and dance numbers together, because every time they did it they killed. Reiner and the show’s writers made The Dick Van Dyke Show’s good-looking, slender stars into a power couple who never would have thought of themselves that way because they were oblivious to their own charm. With their urban, liberal WASP glamour, the Petries were comedy mirrors of John and Jackie Kennedy, as well as a harbinger of the lovable chatterbox yuppies who would start to dominate sitcoms in the '80s.


Moore’s follow-up to The Dick Van Dyke Show was ultimately more important because it broke so much more ground. While it distributed its attention democratically among associate news producer Mary Richards (Moore) and her co-workers, and fashioned Moore’s character as the reactive center of a storm of eccentricity, it was unabashedly a star vehicle that put its top-billed actress front and center, just as The Dick Van Dyke Show had with its namesake. Overseen by writer-producer James L. Brooks, who would become a legendary figure in his own right, it was also the first major sitcom to revolve around a single professional woman who wasn’t widowed. Moore originally wanted Mary to be divorced, but network TV circa 1971 wasn’t ready to do that with a lead character, so the writers gave her a backstory that found her moving to Minneapolis after getting dumped by a boyfriend she’d helped put through medical school. Over seven seasons, the show gave Mary a series of boyfriends, all likable if a tad odd, but ultimately not quite right for her (a stray line in one episode implied that she was on the pill).

But while Mary’s love life was a source of humor, it was ultimately of less interest to the series than the heroine’s work life, which saw her navigating a cranky, hard-drinking boss (Ed Asner’s Lou Grant, who eventually got his own CBS spinoff) and various oddball guest stars and office mates (including Ted Knight’s pompous, thickheaded newscaster Ted Baxter and Gavin MacLeod’s sardonic news writer Murray Slaughter) while trying to put on a popular local newscast of minimal integrity. One of The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s staunchest champions in CBS’s executive suite was Ethel Winant, one the few powerful women in TV in the ’60s and ’70s; she liked to tell the story about how, when she first started working at the network, there were no women’s executive bathrooms, so she had to use men’s bathroom and leave her shoes outside the door as a warning. Moore was a pioneer in that spirit, determined not just to carve out a place for herself, but fortify and sustain it.

To that end, The Mary Tyler Moore show established Moore as one of the most influential independent producers in network TV. She and her business partner and husband, future NBC president Grant Tinker, founded MTM in 1969, and turned their first effort, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, into a multiple Emmy-winning ratings hit. The company went on to air The Bob Newhart Show, Rhoda, and Lou Grant (both spinoffs of The Mary Tyler Moore Show), The White Shadow, WKRP in Cincinnati, Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele, and St. Elsewhere.

Moore’s second most significant production after her self-named sitcom might be Hill Street Blues — an NBC police drama from future TV megaproducer Steven Bochco (and often written by future Deadwood creator David Milch) that fused tropes from the police procedural, the daytime soap opera, and the town Western, creating a show so blackly comic, unabashedly earthy, frankly sexual, and fundamentally adult in its worldview that it held almost zero appeal for kids. A great many cable dramas in the so-called “prestige” mode owe their existence to Hill Street, as well as to the hilarious and often-surreal hospital soap St. Elsewhere. Although their once-groundbreaking production techniques now seem like pokey classicism, their dry wit, empathy, and rigorous intelligence still shine through. You could say the same of sitcoms made by graduates of the MTM factory: Brooks, in particular, carried on in that tradition for decades, on everything from Taxi and The Simpsons to feature films like Terms of Endearment and As Good As It Gets (all of which were sometimes denigrated by critics as big-screen television comedies).

MTM’s logo was a self-deprecating parody of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) logo, its proudly roaring lion replaced by Mary Tyler Moore’s meowing kitten, Mimsie. The logo changed depending on the series: The kitten at the end of The Bob Newhart Show said “meow” in Newhart’s voice, the one at the end of Hill Street Blues sported a little patrolman’s cap, and the one at the end of WKRP spun on a record player. When Mimsie died in 1988 at age 20, right before the final season of St. Elsewhere, the logo showed a still-framed image of Mimsie sleeping while an EKG pattern beeped. MTM’s cat logo summed up the company’s view of what television could be: a more intimate, inwardly directed cousin of cinema, not a direct competitor. This is an aspect of Moore’s legacy that I hope doesn’t get lost in the rush to talk about her likability and versatility onscreen. If you look at all the work that she put her name on as a producer, and all the careers that she helped nurture with and without Tinker (who left MTM after he and Moore divorced and he was named head of NBC), she followed in the footsteps of one her own role models, Lucille Ball, who co-founded Desilu with her co-star and husband Desi Arnaz and shepherded many legendary series, including The Andy Griffith Show, Star Trek, and Mission: Impossible, onto television.

But Mary Tyler Moore the performer will always be the first thing we think of. She was an expert farcical comic, screwball heroine, hoofer, and pratfaller (her “Raaahhhhhhb!” on The Dick Van Dyke Show is a worthy successor to Lucille Ball’s “Rick-EEEEEEEE!”). There was often a sense that Moore’s characters (Mary more than the others) lived life at a very slight remove from everyone around her, and were more thoughtful and watchful than the rest, though perhaps less naturally happy. Robert Redford cannily recognized the dark side of such a personality when he cast her as the withholding mother in Ordinary People who can’t connect with anyone, even her own son — a role for which Moore received an Academy Award nomination and stunned people who thought of her mainly as a comic performer. (You were only surprised if you hadn’t seen her 1978 TV movie First, You Cry, about a newscaster whose mastectomy changes her life.) Moore never seemed to be demanding that you look at her, but you could not take your eyes off her. She somehow managed to hold the screen while surrounded by characters that outshone her in energy and strangeness (a configuration Moore herself approved as producer), and yet that same faintly reticent, measured quality also suggested an inner strength, a rocklike solidity confirmed by Moore’s lifelong success at defining her image and career on her terms.

http://www.vulture.com/2017/01/mary-tyler-moore-one-of-tvs-greatest-auteurs.html

Mary Tyler Moore was a cultural giant who carried herself with a dancer’s grace. She died today at 80, leaving behind a transformed TV landscape, more hospitable to wry, subtle character comedy and more respectful of the emotional lives of women. In a medium still dominated by men, covered by a press corps that still seems inclined to look for the next brooding and obsessive male auteur, we shouldn’t forget that Moore was an auteur herself, and one of the most important in TV history. Her acting career blazed new trails for women in the entertainment industry, and her work as a producer helped popularize TV sitcoms and dramas that weren’t plot- or even gag-driven, but built around characters’ emotions and needs. The astonishing evolution of scripted television in the last 20 years was preceded by the work of figures like Moore. When her most famous character, Mary Richards, tossed her hat in the air in the opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77), the medium instantly warmed to her sunbeam smile; over the next decade and beyond, her example liberated television in ways that it has only begun to understand.

Moore’s landmark star vehicle was preceded by her stint on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–66), a sitcom set against the world of New York comedy programming. She played Laura Petrie, the goofy yet supremely elegant wife of Van Dyke’s comedy writer Rob Petrie. On both that series and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, set at a Minneapolis news station, Moore presented audiences with a new female image: the kindhearted but resilient urban sophisticate, smart and sexy and funny, slightly neurotic and a bit of a kook. We take that type for granted now — 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon has her own peculiarities, but functionally she’s Mary Richards running Saturday Night Live — but it felt bracingly new at a time (the 1960s and ’70s) when sitcoms tended to define female leads as girlfriends, wives, or mothers first.

Her chemistry with Van Dyke was so extraordinary that it ruled out any possibility of the show turning into a more urbane riff on I Love Lucy, a great sitcom in its own right, but one often predicated on making its star and co-executive producer, Lucille Ball, into the butt of jokes as her character, homemaker Lucy Ricardo, tried to wheedle into her bandleader husband’s glamorous showbiz life. The Petries, in contrast, were equals in every way except financially. And the show’s creator, writer-actor Carl Reiner, kept contriving reasons to have them do comedy routines and dance numbers together, because every time they did it they killed. Reiner and the show’s writers made The Dick Van Dyke Show’s good-looking, slender stars into a power couple who never would have thought of themselves that way because they were oblivious to their own charm. With their urban, liberal WASP glamour, the Petries were comedy mirrors of John and Jackie Kennedy, as well as a harbinger of the lovable chatterbox yuppies who would start to dominate sitcoms in the '80s.

Moore’s follow-up to The Dick Van Dyke Show was ultimately more important because it broke so much more ground. While it distributed its attention democratically among associate news producer Mary Richards (Moore) and her co-workers, and fashioned Moore’s character as the reactive center of a storm of eccentricity, it was unabashedly a star vehicle that put its top-billed actress front and center, just as The Dick Van Dyke Show had with its namesake. Overseen by writer-producer James L. Brooks, who would become a legendary figure in his own right, it was also the first major sitcom to revolve around a single professional woman who wasn’t widowed. Moore originally wanted Mary to be divorced, but network TV circa 1971 wasn’t ready to do that with a lead character, so the writers gave her a backstory that found her moving to Minneapolis after getting dumped by a boyfriend she’d helped put through medical school. Over seven seasons, the show gave Mary a series of boyfriends, all likable if a tad odd, but ultimately not quite right for her (a stray line in one episode implied that she was on the pill).

But while Mary’s love life was a source of humor, it was ultimately of less interest to the series than the heroine’s work life, which saw her navigating a cranky, hard-drinking boss (Ed Asner’s Lou Grant, who eventually got his own CBS spinoff) and various oddball guest stars and office mates (including Ted Knight’s pompous, thickheaded newscaster Ted Baxter and Gavin MacLeod’s sardonic news writer Murray Slaughter) while trying to put on a popular local newscast of minimal integrity. One of The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s staunchest champions in CBS’s executive suite was Ethel Winant, one the few powerful women in TV in the ’60s and ’70s; she liked to tell the story about how, when she first started working at the network, there were no women’s executive bathrooms, so she had to use men’s bathroom and leave her shoes outside the door as a warning. Moore was a pioneer in that spirit, determined not just to carve out a place for herself, but fortify and sustain it.

To that end, The Mary Tyler Moore show established Moore as one of the most influential independent producers in network TV. She and her business partner and husband, future NBC president Grant Tinker, founded MTM in 1969, and turned their first effort, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, into a multiple Emmy-winning ratings hit. The company went on to air The Bob Newhart Show, Rhoda, and Lou Grant (both spinoffs of The Mary Tyler Moore Show), The White Shadow, WKRP in Cincinnati, Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele, and St. Elsewhere.

Moore’s second most significant production after her self-named sitcom might be Hill Street Blues — an NBC police drama from future TV megaproducer Steven Bochco (and often written by future Deadwood creator David Milch) that fused tropes from the police procedural, the daytime soap opera, and the town Western, creating a show so blackly comic, unabashedly earthy, frankly sexual, and fundamentally adult in its worldview that it held almost zero appeal for kids. A great many cable dramas in the so-called “prestige” mode owe their existence to Hill Street, as well as to the hilarious and often-surreal hospital soap St. Elsewhere. Although their once-groundbreaking production techniques now seem like pokey classicism, their dry wit, empathy, and rigorous intelligence still shine through. You could say the same of sitcoms made by graduates of the MTM factory: Brooks, in particular, carried on in that tradition for decades, on everything from Taxi and The Simpsons to feature films like Terms of Endearment and As Good As It Gets (all of which were sometimes denigrated by critics as big-screen television comedies).

MTM’s logo was a self-deprecating parody of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) logo, its proudly roaring lion replaced by Mary Tyler Moore’s meowing kitten, Mimsie. The logo changed depending on the series: The kitten at the end of The Bob Newhart Show said “meow” in Newhart’s voice, the one at the end of Hill Street Blues sported a little patrolman’s cap, and the one at the end of WKRP spun on a record player. When Mimsie died in 1988 at age 20, right before the final season of St. Elsewhere, the logo showed a still-framed image of Mimsie sleeping while an EKG pattern beeped. MTM’s cat logo summed up the company’s view of what television could be: a more intimate, inwardly directed cousin of cinema, not a direct competitor. This is an aspect of Moore’s legacy that I hope doesn’t get lost in the rush to talk about her likability and versatility onscreen. If you look at all the work that she put her name on as a producer, and all the careers that she helped nurture with and without Tinker (who left MTM after he and Moore divorced and he was named head of NBC), she followed in the footsteps of one her own role models, Lucille Ball, who co-founded Desilu with her co-star and husband Desi Arnaz and shepherded many legendary series, including The Andy Griffith Show, Star Trek, and Mission: Impossible, onto television.

But Mary Tyler Moore the performer will always be the first thing we think of. She was an expert farcical comic, screwball heroine, hoofer, and pratfaller (her “Raaahhhhhhb!” on The Dick Van Dyke Show is a worthy successor to Lucille Ball’s “Rick-EEEEEEEE!”). There was often a sense that Moore’s characters (Mary more than the others) lived life at a very slight remove from everyone around her, and were more thoughtful and watchful than the rest, though perhaps less naturally happy. Robert Redford cannily recognized the dark side of such a personality when he cast her as the withholding mother in Ordinary People who can’t connect with anyone, even her own son — a role for which Moore received an Academy Award nomination and stunned people who thought of her mainly as a comic performer. (You were only surprised if you hadn’t seen her 1978 TV movie First, You Cry, about a newscaster whose mastectomy changes her life.) Moore never seemed to be demanding that you look at her, but you could not take your eyes off her. She somehow managed to hold the screen while surrounded by characters that outshone her in energy and strangeness (a configuration Moore herself approved as producer), and yet that same faintly reticent, measured quality also suggested an inner strength, a rocklike solidity confirmed by Moore’s lifelong success at defining her image and career on her terms.

RIP. Mary Tyler Moore will be missed. :(
She was a very well known actress.

I know duplicate RIP threads can be made for big celebs. She was on more than one show.
When the time comes and we lose Betty White, Michael J. Fox, etc. it will be understandable to see two threads on different boards at SO. When John Ritter passed away that was a big shock.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was great. It was on before my time, but It was so funny.

Remember the Mary-thons, years ago...I forget, either on Nick at Nite or TV Land?

Besides all the accolades about being a groundbreaking show, MTM Show really was a super-funny sitcom from the get-go. The pilot episode was an LOL scream...who can forget some of the lines like, "I hate spunk", and "That was mother's news", and Mary's (wrapping up Lou's drunken letter) "All my love, Lou"? And while many other shows kind of flail around in the first season, MTM took off running with other memorable episodes, like Paul Sand and the calculator (adding machine, at the time). And it just kept getting better...Mary's parties, Chuckles the Clown dying, brilliantly acted by Mary. And the final episode--who can forget the group hug? There are many more etched in our memories.

RIP, MTM!

http://www.kesq.com/news/local-icon-gavin-macleod-distraught-over-death-of-mary-tyler-moore/292894781

Local icon Gavin MacLeod distraught over death of Mary Tyler Moore
By: Patrick Edgell

Posted: Jan 25, 2017 03:55 PM PST



Local icon Gavin MacLeod distraught over death of Mary Tyler Moore
MGN Online & PBS


PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - KESQ News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2 is hearing reaction from a local costar of TV icon Mary Tyler Moore, as the legendary actress passed away Wednesday morning.

Gavin MacLeod starred as Murray Slaughter on the Mary Tyler Moore show from 1970-1977. His long career began in films in 1957, according to Wikipedia. He was also well-known for his starring role on The Love Boat from 1977-1986.

MacLeod released the following statement to KESQ News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2 Wednesday afternoon:

A line from our theme song was "Love is all around", and that's what it was for 5 days a week for seven years straight on the Mary Tyler Moore set.

It was all because of Mary! She was professional; she was extremely creative with a terrific sense of humor and a gifted actress. She set a pace for all of us to follow. So I consider those seven years working with this very special person as a gift from God. It goes with out saying what a wonderful loving and caring person she was to everyone who worked on the show. Mary was America's sweetheart and she was mine also. I was the luckiest guy in the world just sitting next to her and looking at her beautiful face…and legs!

One of my favorite shows was when Murray turned 40 years old and woke up thinking he was in love with Mary…but "Chuckles Bites The Dust" remains one of the classic comedy episodes of all time.

Today, "sadness is all around" for all of us and I will miss Mary…deeply.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2017/01/25/ed-asner-mary-tyler-moore/97065260/

Ed Asner says Mary Tyler Moore had spunk, and this time he liked it
Bill Keveney , USA TODAY Published 9:47 p.m. ET Jan. 25, 2017 |

When it comes to Mary Tyler Moore, Edward Asner differs with his Mary Tyler Moore Show alter ego, Lou Grant.

"She had spunk," says Asner, paraphrasing the gruff but lovable newsman who professed to hate spunk in a classic scene with Moore's Mary Richards. But does Asner hate spunk? "No. Not when she has it."

"I loved her. The world loved her — and it should have," Asner told USA TODAY hours after Moore's death Wednesday at 80. "She was an inspiration to women and she was a good example as a human being. And, of course, she was a fighter."


Moore's newsroom associate producer, Mary Richards, a single working woman in her 30s, became a role model for many when the iconic comedy launched its seven-season run in 1970.


When Mary arrived in Minneapolis after a broken engagement, "She showed how a girl forges onward, upward and makes it on her own, as the (theme) song says," Asner says from Toronto, where he's working on an independent film, The Parting Glass.




When Mary premiered, Asner says, he had no idea some would eventually pronounce it the greatest sitcom ever, or that it would be so beloved 40 years after ending its run in 1977. However, "As we began to work on it and shape it and round it, it became quite revealing to us that we were doing the Lord’s work," he says.

Asner praises Moore's generosity to her fellow actors, who earned stardom and eventually their own shows, including Asner's Lou Grant drama spinoff. The cast also included Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, Gavin MacLeod, Ted Knight, Betty White and Georgia Engel.



Moore "never missed an (opportunity) to advance us. She took good care of us," he says. "We worshipped her. We were all eager to throw ourselves on our swords for her."

Asked if he had a favorite episode or scene featuring Moore, Asner cites the famed "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode, but then broadens his perspective. "You could take any of those shows and watch them and celebrate. I love them all."

http://deadline.com/2017/01/mary-tyler-moore-cbs-primetime-special-thursday-1201894305/

CBS To Honor Mary Tyler Moore With Primetime Special Thursday
by Lisa de Moraes
January 25, 2017 3:28pm

UPDATED with rebroadcast of PBS documentary: CBS said this afternoon it will air a special one-hour CBS News tribute to Mary Tyler Moore, who died today at 80.

Gayle King will anchor Mary Tyler Moore: Love Is All Around, to air at 9 PM ET. And yes, Oprah Winfrey will be among those who weigh in, though she was not involved in any of Moore’s iconic TV series and there are still plenty of people around who were. Some of those presumably will participate in the special, though CBS News did not name any of them.

PBS, on the other hand, said its stations will rebroadcast Mary Tyler Moore: A Celebration in honor of the TV icon. The documentary, which first aired in 2015, commemorates Moore and her 50-plus-year career,and features names such as Dick Van Dyke, Betty White, and Valerie Harper, who actually were involved in Moore’s life and work. Check local PBS stations for details.

CBS took guff in some quarters today when it briefly interrupted its daytime schedule for Scott Pelley to report that Moore had died. Moore was a huge CBS star, including her roles as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s, and as the single woman with a career in TV journalism on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the ’70s.

CBS News said the special will “mine CBS’ vast archives ” and include “interviews with Oprah Winfrey, newsmakers, admirers and others.”

Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer of the CBS special.

I wonder what time it will be on.

Great talent, she was a major part of the best comedy series of the 1960's, and the star of the best comedy series of the 1970's. Wonderful dramatic actress, I would like to see the Dick Van Dyke reunion special (I believe it was broadcast on Nick At Nite). We've lost a television icon, one of the biggest.

Saturday night TV in the 1970's was just a magical time. Bob Newhart, All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett. It was just an embarrassment of riches for my generation to grow up with. We were so spoiled; and it's so hard to lose these people who really, truly felt like friends to us all, because they played characters who were so real and human.

We all are children of light, but boy, some of us shine so bright and it seems like Mary sure did.

Feeling kind of old tonight. :(

Remember the Mary-thons, years ago...I forget, either on Nick at Nite or TV Land?



Nick at Nite mid-nineties. I loved Mary Mondays on Block Party Summer when I was a kid.

2qLg3fOg4cU

Not gonna lie, I've shed some tears at this news. Even though we knew Mary was dealing with medical issues, it was still a shock.
So a co-star of The Dick Van Dyke Show, and the star of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which I would argue are the two best sitcoms ever, has passed. And we've lost Mary, possibly the greatest combination of female beauty, brains, sense of humor, and talent ever. Devastating, really.
What gives me some comfort is the fact that Mary did become a star. I mean, what if she hadn't been discovered? What if Carl Reiner hadn't clawed the top of her head and brought her to Danny Thomas's office? We're lucky that we got to experience her brilliance, and I am happy to have the DVDs that preserve the magic of those two series available to watch for as long as I'm around.
Specifically regarding TMTMS, which I saw first-run as a teenager in the 1970s (and it also applies to first-run viewers of TDVDS), I believe there are some things that happen, some eras, when you really just had to be there to totally appreciate it, and you feel sorry for the people who weren't. TMTMS caught lightning in a bottle with its lovely star, talented cast, excellent writers, etc., during a time when feminism was coming into its own ... and it was a wonderful thing. It boggles my mind that it's been four decades since the show ended and so many people didn't get to experience what we fans got to. As Retro4Life wrote in his eloquent post, I, too am feeling kind of old tonight.

P.S. Mary went through so much, and was such a fighter, I'm planning to make a donation to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation in her name. I'm sure the organization would appreciate any such gesture, in any amount.

I wonder what time it will be on.

As it said in the original post - 9pm ET

Goodbye Mary, rest in peace

Some other MTM specials that are set to air...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/mary-tyler-moore-to-be-honored-with-tv-specials-tributes-and-marathons/ar-AAmfA1j?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp

“The Mary Tyler Moore Show” Marathon, SundanceTV, Saturday, Jan 28, 6 a.m.

Starting at 6:00 a.m., SundanceTV will air an all-day marathon of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” featuring all 24 episodes of the final season. Created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” debuted on Sept. 19, 1970, making its mark in TV history as one of the most acclaimed series of all time. The sitcom was awarded with three Golden Globes, 29 Emmys, and a Peabody Award. The sitcom ran for seven seasons from 1970 to 1977.

“Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman,” getTV, Monday, Jan. 30, 11 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. PT

The 1969 variety special will be broadcast on getTV. The one-off starred “The Dick Van Dyke Show” duo for a night of laughs and music with a dance number on crutches and a wedding cake skit.

Following the variety special is a 1960 episode of the crime series “Johnny Staccato,” which Moore guest starred on early in her career, playing a beauty contestant pageant who needs help when her life is threatened by a mysterious man. The episode, titled “The Mask Of Jason,” will air at 12 a.m. PT.

“Mary Tyler Moore: A Celebration,” PBS

The documentary will re-broadcast on PBS. First airing in 2015, the doc commemorates Moore and her career of over 50 years that included award-winning films, Broadway shows, and her two iconic television shows. Dick Van Dyke, Betty White, and Valerie Harper are featured in interviews. The film was produced by Steve Boettcher and Mike Trinklein, of Pioneers of Television.

Check your local listings, or watch the documentary streaming here.

Georgia Engel

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/mary-tyler-moore-dead-stars-mourn-loss-of-a-fearless-visionary-w462978

, "She was my beloved friend, I loved her very much. She helped launch my career. She will be missed greatly.”

She starred on 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' and on her eponymous sitcom, two of most acclaimed comedies ever, then acted against type to earn an Oscar nom for 'Ordinary People.'Ya its very sad ZB,many ppl are dying left and right :(

From Valerie Harper...

https://www.facebook.com/valerieharperfans/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf

To ... The World
From...Valerie Harper or "Rhoda"

Last week, to prepare me, I was kindly warned by Mary Tyler Moore's dear husband, Dr. Robert Levine, that she was in the very last stages of life.

But still I cannot stop the emotions I'm experiencing, since she was my acting colleague, my sister/soulmate, and above all, ONE HELL OF A GIRLFRIEND!

Working together we knew each other so well we could anticipate each other's moods, ever ready to engage and KNOW there would be an appropriate response from Mary.

I will always feel privileged and honored with the amount of quality time I was able to spend with Mary.

I'll miss you "Mair."

I will always be your co-pilot.

I will always love you, darling Mary Tyler Moore.

http://ew.com/tv/2017/01/26/betty-white-mary-tyler-moore/

Betty White on Mary Tyler Moore: 'She was special'

Derek Lawrence


Betty White and Mary Tyler Moore were costars, friends, and television legends. Now, White is remembering the “special” Moore, who died Wednesday at the age of 80.

“Mary Tyler Moore, Grant Tinker, Allen Ludden and I had some of the best times of my life together,” White wrote on Instagram, paired with a picture of the duo, accompanied by their former spouses (Ludden died in 1981; Tinker, who was married to Moore until 1981, died last November). “She was special.”

Having joined The Mary Tyler Moore Show midway through its seven-season run, White scored two Emmys for her role of Sue Ann Nivens, a.k.a. The Happy Homemaker. Fittingly, the legendary actresses, joined by fellow Mary Tyler Moore Show castmate and fellow icon Cloris Leachman, reunited for Moore’s final role, an appearance on White’s TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland.

Nice tribute CBS did for Mary Tyler Moore.

As it said in the original post - 9pm ET

Oh, sorry. I didn't see it when I read it.

Rest in peace Mary. The first time I saw an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show was in 1997, the year I was graduating high school. The reruns rarely aired in Canada, until WTN (now called WNetwork) got the rights to it and Rhoda, which I also watched. I was familiar with most of the actors on the show from other shows I grew up watching: Ted Knight (Too Close for Comfort), Betty White (The Golden Girls), Valerie Harper (Valerie), Cloris Leachman (The Facts of Life), and Gavin MacLeod (The Love Boat). I may have to get the DVD's.

:rip:

From Valerie Harper...

https://www.facebook.com/valerieharperfans/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf

To ... The World
From...Valerie Harper or "Rhoda"

Last week, to prepare me, I was kindly warned by Mary Tyler Moore's dear husband, Dr. Robert Levine, that she was in the very last stages of life.

But still I cannot stop the emotions I'm experiencing, since she was my acting colleague, my sister/soulmate, and above all, ONE HELL OF A GIRLFRIEND!

Working together we knew each other so well we could anticipate each other's moods, ever ready to engage and KNOW there would be an appropriate response from Mary.

I will always feel privileged and honored with the amount of quality time I was able to spend with Mary.

I'll miss you "Mair."

I will always be your co-pilot.

I will always love you, darling Mary Tyler Moore.

Reading this brought tears to my eyes. How wonderfully heartfelt. I hope Valerie Harper is aware of the millions of people grieving with her, although we can't feel the pain of someone like her who was truly a friend of Mary Tyler Moore's for so, so many years, and whose life and career was directly and profoundly impacted by Ms. Moore.

When I retired from teaching i had two "Mary " moments -
1. When I spoke to my fellow teachers, I "thanked them for being my family"
2. As the last child walked out of my classroom, I stopped, went back in, took one last look and turned out the lights.

I really did this because of the impression that the Mary Tyler Moore show had on me.

Thank you Mary for giving me such precious memories.

Mary Tyler Moore Laid to Rest at Private Connecticut Funeral

http://www.eonline.com/news/825118/mary-tyler-moore-laid-to-rest-at-private-connecticut-funeral

So sad. Rest in peace Mary you will be missed.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show's theme song is also one of my favorite TV theme songs ever.

Ed.

I watched both MTM specials on both CBS and ABC (20/20). I thought ABC's was much better. CBS focused too much on Oprah.

I watched both MTM specials on both CBS and ABC (20/20). I thought ABC's was much better. CBS focused too much on Oprah.

Didn't see the ABC one, but I agree we didn't need the CBS Oprah-fest. But there were a lot of good clips. I keep checking the TV Guide but I can't find the PBS special...has anyone seen it yet?

So sad Mary has gone,I wrote to her in 87 got a lovley signed picture enclosed,what a lovely legacy Mary has left us,you'll never be forgotten Mary!.

Hollywood Remembers Mary Tyler Moore 9:30am Eastern Time/8:30am Central Time) on Decardes, Friday, February 3rd.

Mary Tyler Moore marathon on Decades channel Saturday 1pm Eastern Time (12pm Central Time) - Monday, 7am Eastern Time.(6am Central Time)

I was too distraught to post until now. Not many actors dying hit me this hard.
The reality is concerning MTM's health issues, she did live a long life. But her death still caught me off guard.

The MTM show is one of my favourite shows ever, and I was dreading this day. Not necessarily because of MTM's death, but because with the exception of Ted Knight, we are fortunate the rest of the cast is still with us. How many TV shows from the 1970's (that was mostly adults) are most of the cast still living?

I watch MTM every night on a channel called Comedy Gold here in Canada. This past Saturday it was MTM all day. (16 episodes) Then on Sunday I saw a comedy channel that I never watch show had MTM episodes in the afternoon. (8 episodes)

She is now with her son.

"The Mary Tyler Moore Show" That Wasn't: How CBS Refused to Have the Actress Play a Divorcee
by Allan Burns, as told to Stephen Galloway
Feb. 2, 2017


Jim and I were not partners at the time; we were writers who admired each other. He had created a show called "Room 222" and asked if I could help him with the script. He was at Fox, and the head of television for Fox, Grant Tinker, took a liking to us, both separately and together.

Jim and I were talking on the phone one day, and I said, “Has Grant been talking to you about anything?” He said, “I think Mary is going to be doing a new show.”

This was after "The Dick Van Dyke Show", considerably after, because she had done a few years of movie work. It turned out that Jim was right. Grant was talking about the two of us writing a new show for Mary, and we had not met her.

After talking around the ideas we had, Grant said, “Maybe it’s time you guys met with Mary.” We had already done some writing she liked and so went over to her house one night and she just committed to it. Grant’s approval was the stamp of approval, as far as she was concerned. If Grant trusted us, she trusted us, and that never changed.







We had the idea that we would do the first divorcee on television. It’s hard to believe, but in 1970 that was a controversial idea. Mary loved the idea, Grant loved the idea. Both of them were divorced and understood it, but the network had a sort of cardiac episode.

We were summoned to New York, to the office of Mike Dann, who was then the head of programming for CBS. He was a long-termer, the entity you had to go to, hard-nosed. He did not like what we had proposed and in fact called upon a research guy who was in the meeting with us.



They were really ready for the two of us, and we were relatively inexperienced. We thought we were ready for their objections to divorce, because we said everybody is touched by divorce and it gives us an awful lot of possibilities story-wise.

They clearly were not happy. We had gone to New York accompanied by Arthur Price, who was Mary’s manager and the vice president of MTM, and when the meeting was over and Jim and I were dismissed, Dann turned to Arthur and said, “Tell Grant to get rid of these clowns.”



We said, “OK, if they won’t do divorce, what can we do that would explain an attractive 30-year-old woman without a relationship?” We came up with the notion that this woman is coming off a long-term relationship with a guy at the Mayo Clinic.

They were somewhat satisfied; as long as they had gotten rid of the divorce idea, maybe they would tolerate us a little longer. And that’s what the first show was really about: a woman having to give up her small-town life in Rochester, Minn. The main title sets up the whole thing.



Grant liked it and Mary trusted Grant. She was the most hands-off star I ever met. If her husband approved of us, we must be good — that was her attitude.

She never asked to be included in any of the creative decisions. She just happened to be the most talented comedienne on television.







But CBS didn’t like a lot of our scripts. At one point, pretty early on, we had a script in which Rhoda’s mother came to visit. She wouldn’t see her mother — and they hated that.

The whole idea that the co-star of a show would not want to see her mother! This guy called us from CBS and said, “I’m going to tell you not to shoot this show.” So Jim and I looked at each other, and we called Grant and said, “They told us we can’t do this show.” He said, “The one we’re supposed to be shooting next week? I love that show. It’s funny.” I said, “What are we supposed to do?” He said, “Go ahead and shoot it.”



People don’t do that, back up the writers against the network. They [Tinker and Moore] just backed us up. We may have had some minuscule changes, but very, very minuscule. As it turned out, that particular episode won us an Emmy. That’s Mary and Grant. They were really ballsy. We didn’t have one show that they didn’t let us shoot in 162 episodes.

I guess it was some sort of fool’s paradise. I had friends who were doing other shows, for other studios, who were having terrible times with the interference. It was like this dream, our whole experience with them.







Mary was a dream. I can’t imagine having a working relationship like that with anybody else. She was so trusting and so enthusiastic. She just had our back. We met her and we loved her. It never stopped for seven years.

What would surprise you was how shy she was. Very shy. Somebody who really glittered in the spotlight, when it was on her, was very self-effacing, very quiet. After we started the second year, Mary came up to us one day and very quietly and wistfully said, “Guys, I can be funny too,” instead of “Why the hell aren’t you …?!!”



If you want to ask me one word to describe her — other than talented — it was generous. Once, we were reading a script around the table, and one line got a particularly big laugh. Mary kind of put her hand up timidly and said, “You know that line? I think you’d get a bigger laugh if Rhoda said it.”

Now where did you ever hear a star say, “Let me give this huge laugh to another character?” Valerie [Harper] killed with it — but it could easily have been Mary. She thought for the good of the show.







That famous "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode was a favorite memory. There was a clown who gets stepped on by an elephant and dies. We thought it was an absolutely ridiculous way to die, but hysterically funny. Nobody could keep a straight face. All through the rehearsal, everybody’s howling. But not Mary — the character, that is, not Mary Tyler Moore. For her, this was not a proper thing to do: A man has died and you should respect that.

All through the week, everybody fell apart with laughter. Even up to dress rehearsal, she still got a giggle about it. We said, “Mary if you don’t keep a straight face, this whole half-hour is gone.” She says, “Don’t worry.”

Well, when we finally shot it, she did not crack a smile. She was as stern as could be. Then, at the funeral conducted by this unctuous priest, she starts to laugh. She can’t stop herself. Everybody else now is acting very serious. Mary finally explodes with laughter. I think it’s the loudest, longest laugh we ever had — but how difficult it was to be able to suck it up on that last night and give this performance. She won an Emmy for it.







Years later I got a call from Robert Redford one day — which impressed my secretary. He said, “I’m doing this very serious movie and I can’t get Mary Tyler Moore out of my mind.” They lived in the same stretch of Malibu. I said, “I have no doubt that whatever you’ve got in mind for her, she will do it and surprise you. She is just remarkable. She can do it all.”

And it turned out she could, because she got an Oscar nomination for that [Ordinary People]. I always said: There was nothing that Mary Tyler Moore was incapable of. She was just wonderful.



I miss her dearly. To lose both of them [Moore and Tinker] in six weeks was quite a blow. Mary was a dream in every way. In temperament, in talent, in beauty. A remarkable woman.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mary-tyler-moore-show-wasn-t-how-cbs-refused-have-actress-play-a-divorcee-971219

What a wonderful tribute. Confirms a lot of things I suspected about Ms. Moore.

Thanks for sharing it, James.

http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/best-mary-tyler-moore-show-episodes-chuckles-free.html

From "The Good Time News" to "Lou Dates Mary."

When I retired from teaching i had two "Mary " moments -
1. When I spoke to my fellow teachers, I "thanked them for being my family"
2. As the last child walked out of my classroom, I stopped, went back in, took one last look and turned out the lights.

I really did this because of the impression that the Mary Tyler Moore show had on me.

Thank you Mary for giving me such precious memories.


TV has such a bad reputation as something that has made us less human and/or worse humans.
It can depend on how we utilize the tragedies, triumphs and personal stories of fictional characters. It actually can help us to cope and understand.

Rest in peace MTM

I grew up watching Mary Tyler Moore on TVLand in the nineties. My mom always had it on. Very sad, though she lived a fairly long life, especially given her diabetes. I read she was nearly blind in her last couple years which is no good. I'm a Type 1 diabetic myself and I appreciate all the campaigning she did advocating on behalf of diabetics.

I have one of Mary's books in which she related many of her problems due to diabetes. Vision problems came early on in her long battle, as she discussed things like being in a group (like at a party) and worrying that her not seeing someone would be misinterpreted as a snub. It's a good example of how thoughtful she was -- while having significant medical problems, she still placed others first.

In one of her interviews with Dick Cavett, how she describes her lack of confidence at times is consistent with how humble she was. Remarkable lady.

Ed Asner Remembers Mary Tyler Moore: "She Was One of the Greats"
by Dan Snierson
Jan. 25, 2018


Hats flew at half-mast on Jan. 25. When Mary Tyler Moore died at the age of 80 of cardiopulmonary arrest in Greenwich, Connecticut, the culture mourned the loss of one of the most vital and vivacious voices in TV history.

Moore fetched two Emmys in the 1960s as charming housewife Laura Petrie on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and earned an Oscar nomination as an icy mother in 1980’s Ordinary People. But it was in her seven-season turn (1970-77) as spunky TV producer Mary Richards on CBS’ "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" that Moore burned brightest, winning four Emmys as a single woman who defied traditional archetypes, charted her own course in the workforce, and became a feminist icon.




Along the way, Mary Richards formed an unlikely bond with her gruff boss, Lou Grant (Ed Asner). They became a punchline-perfect duo, and their friendship evolved into the show’s emotional center. If she could turn the world on with her smile, he could turn it right back off with his scowl.

Here, Asner, 87, who nabbed five Emmys for that role, remembers the woman who changed the game not only for him—but for audiences everywhere.







When Lou Met Mary

During the casting process for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", Asner was recommended to series creators James L. Brooks and Allan Burns by Grant Tinker, Moore’s then-husband and co-founder of MTM Enterprises, and CBS casting exec Ethel Winant, who was convinced that the dramatic actor could pull off comedy.

After an audition with the producers, Asner was brought back to read opposite Moore.




"America’s sweetheart — that was my first impression. Automatically, her beauty took hold. She was the goddess, and I hoped that the little lady — or the big lady, I should say — would overlook my faults.

I read as I thought they wanted to hear me read, and they laughed and said the appropriate “Thank you, we’ll be in touch.” From what I heard, after I left, Mary turned to them and, with a tremendously screwed-up face, said, “Are you sure?” I don’t blame her for asking the question that way, because it was a meshuggeneh reading. The producers then said to her, “That’s your Lou Grant.”

I like to think the Mary-Lou relationship was special. Lou served as a guardian for her throughout the history of the show and sometimes pushed her forward when she wasn’t ready to be pushed."







Tears and Tinkering

A few days before the pilot was filmed, Moore & Co. performed a test version of the show in front of a live audience. It did not go well.

The audience did not laugh to any degree. Mary was in horrendous tears. Supposedly, Grant said to the producers, “Fix it.”



"At the Friday filming, the producers said, “Just play the hell out of it.” We went out there and we kicked the s— out of it. I got to the “You know what? You’ve got spunk” scene, and I had a devilish grin on my face. And her character basked in that credit I was giving her. I immediately turned on her and said, “I hate spunk.”

We just felt that the whole scene was a great jumping-off place for the show. It flew like the wind and collected all kinds of huzzahs. We marveled at how the early prognostications were full of s—. I felt, at that moment, that I could’ve taken those 300 people [in the audience] and marched them off a cliff — they were totally in my power. From that point on, the show just floated on clouds."







A Feminist Rises

In the first two seasons, Mary Richards was Lou Grant’s eager young protégée, not looking to rock the boat. But in the third season, in 1972, she became aware of (and pushed back against) gender inequality in the workplace.

In the season 3 premiere, Mary discovers that her predecessor, a man, earned $50 more per week. When she challenges Lou on this, he unapologeticaly notes that men need to make more money because they have families to support. Mary responds with a logical, eloquent argument for equal pay that rings relevant today. From that time forward, Mary evolved into a more vocal advocate for herself and, by extension, for all working women. Just as important, Lou — an old-school man’s man — often found himself swayed by her positions, signaling to men that giving women power didn’t make men weaker.

All of this was cloaked in the show’s humor and charm.



"The producers saw Moore’s pluses and realized that they were a bonanza to draw from—both her wit and her intelligence and her comic timing—to push Lou’s envelope as far as it could be pushed. I was surprised to hear that we were breaking ground and, later on, those saying it was revolutionary. I couldn’t believe that everybody tended to think of this as such a big deal. Women certainly regarded it that way.

I never saw any reaction [from Moore] except a pleased-as-punch smile. She didn’t comment on it, nobody else did. I didn’t comment on it either. “If that’s what they think, fine, we’ll forge ahead and amass more sympathetic votes.” Rights advancements come about many times by quietly instituting it rather than blazing it across the front page."







Love is All Around

Moore kicked down a door for comedic actresses that had been open only a crack: the idea that women could be beautiful, smart, and funny. Moore kept her humor character-based rather than clownish.

Although, in one famous episode, a clown becomes Mary Richards’ undoing.



"When Chuckles the Clown bites the dust, Mary tries to ride herd on all of us to be properly mournful and observant, and then the minister gives his sermon. Each time he mentions something — ”A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants” — Mary breaks up giggling, and the rest of us all look at her like, “Are you nuts? It’s terrible what you’re doing!” She ends the scene crying. That’s what [Moore] could do: Mary could laugh and cry at the same time, and that was a special gift that truly delineated her.

There wasn’t a person she was unkind to in her glory days. There wasn’t an animal that she didn’t love. I can’t say I ever take the measure of most stars of TV shows, but she was quite willing to stay in the background and give the star turn to whoever had that moment in the show, be it a permanent member of the cast or the guest. She was willing to bask in their reflected light."







Mary After All

In the years after the show went off the air and Asner went on to star on "Lou Grant", Asner and Moore drifted, but his admiration for her, he says, never wavered.


"Mary gave us brilliant moments for seven years. She was one of the greats. She was unique in terms of beauty and wit — a nonpareil. I call the show “seven years of the yellow brick road,” and I certainly was given a great gift. I think the others in the show felt the same way.

There would be no show without Mary Tyler Moore. She was the show, and we were damn grateful she was there. Thank God fortune dealt us that hand."

http://ew.com/tv/2018/01/25/ed-asner-mary-tyler-moore-death-anniversary/

Can't believe she has already been gone for a year... :(

Mary has had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel for several years before her death, her health was really awful. According to DVD, she was nearly blind from diabetes and house bound and in a lot of pain.

What's happening with Valarie Harper? Wasn't she diagnosed with brain cancer and only had months to live? That seemingly was two or three years ago.