Mary Tyler Moore

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Mary Tyler Moore
Image:Mary Tyler Moore 1993.jpg Mary Tyler Moore at the 45th Emmy Awards Governor's Ball, September 19, 1993, photo by Alan Light
Born	December 29 1936 (age 71) Brooklyn, New York
Notable roles	Laura Meeker/Meehan Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966) Dorothy Brown in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) Mary Richards in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977) Beth Jarrett in Ordinary People (1980) Pearl Coplin in Flirting with Disaster (1996)

Mary Tyler Moore, American actress and comedian, perhaps best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30ish single woman who worked as a news producer at WJM-TV in Minneapolis, and for her role as Laura Petrie, wife of television comedy writer Rob Petrie (played by Dick Van Dyke) on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Moore played leading roles in two of the most fondly remembered classic comedy series, making a tremendous impact on television over two decades.

She has also appeared in various films over the years. Her best remembered performance came in 1980's Ordinary People, which garnered her an Oscar nomination for a role that was the polar opposite of the characters viewers had become accustomed to seeing her portray on television. She has also been active in charity work and various political causes, particularly animal rights.

1 Biography
2 Film
- 2.1 Filmography
3 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

The eldest of three siblings, Moore was born in 1937 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).

At the age of seventeen, she 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. Prior to her breakthrough role as Rob's (Dick Van Dyke) wife Laura in The Dick Van Dyke Show, she had 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. She had 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." 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.

[edit] Career

Image:Dick van dyke show 3.jpg

In 1966, Moore won the much sought-after role of Holly Golightly in the David Merrick-produced musical Breakfast at Tiffany's, with a book by Edward Albee and score by Bob Merrill. The seriously plagued production underwent constant changes during its out-of-town tryouts, Moore stated in interviews that she felt Merrick wanted to replace her. Instead, after four previews, he cancelled the Broadway opening, depite record advance sales. A live recording was made and eventually released on LP (much prized by theatre collectors). Moore has subsequently appeared on the Broadway stage to great acclaim, but never in a musical.

Moore's first regular television role was on the show Richard Diamond, Private Detective; however, in that show, only her legs were ever shown. Her first important television role in which she gained wide recognition was as Laura Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show. When she won an Emmy award for her portrayal of Laura, she said, through her tears, quite incorrectly, "I know this will never happen again!"

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 (2001) and reunited with her Dick Van Dyke Show castmates for a reunion "episode".

Moore also starred with Elvis Presley in the 1969 film Change of Habit. She played a nun (the title is a pun) and Presley plays a doctor. Also appearing in the film is Moore's future television cast member Ed Asner.

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.

[edit] Personal life

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, 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 claimed 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.

[edit] Charity work

Image:Moore Hastert.jpg

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 [1]).

[edit] 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."