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| Birth Name(s) : Mary Tyler Moore |
Date of Birth: December 29, 1936 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Dr. Robert Levine |
| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Mary Tyler Moore Biography
Mary Tyler Moore, an Academy Award nominee for Ordinary People and seven-time Emmy Award winner, holds a special place in people's hearts as a symbol of female independence and strength, both in her work and personal life. Her first taste of stardom came when she was cast as Happy Hotpoint, the elfin logo for Hotpoint appliances on The Ozzie and Harriet Show in the 1950s. Moore later portrayed Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961-66, a role which earned her two Emmy Awards. During the 1970s, she starred in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which won numerous Emmy Awards including four for its star. In 1988, she played Mary Todd Lincoln in the NBC miniseries Gore Vidal's Lincoln, again earning critical praise and another Emmy nomination. She executive-produced the highly-rated ABC movie Mary and Rhoda. More recently, she played the murderous Sante Kimes in Like Mother, Like Son and re-teamed with Dick Van Dyke in the PBS production of The Gin Game, to air spring 2003. Moore's other television credits include the telefilms First You Cry, the story of a woman battling breast cancer; Stolen Memories: Secrets From the Rose Garden; and Stolen Babies, garnering her an unprecedented seventh Emmy Award. In addition to Ordinary People, her talents can also be seen in numerous feature films, including Six Weeks, with Dudley Moore and Flirting With Disaster.
Moore made her dramatic debut on Broadway in Whose Life Is It Anyway?, a role which earned her a Tony Award. She is the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, is active in numerous non-profit health and animal protection organizations and funds scholarship programs in the arts and academics. |
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Additional Mary Tyler Moore Biography
Mary Tyler Moore (born December 29, 1936) is an Academy Award-nominated and seven-time Emmy Award winning American actress and comedian, perhaps best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977), in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something 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 (1961–1966). Moore played leading roles in two of the most fondly remembered classic comedy series, making a tremendous impact on television over two decades.
At the age of 17, Moore started 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 her only child Richard, became too obvious for her to hide any longer, according to Moore in her autobiography.)
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. The show was produced by Danny Thomas's company, and Thomas himself recommended her. He remembered Mary as "the girl with three names"
whom he had turned down earlier. Moore's energetic comedic performances as Van Dyke's character's wife, begun at age 24, 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!"
After a brief respite, Moore threw herself into a completely different genre. She attempted two failed variety series in a row: Mary, which featured David Letterman and Michael Keaton 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. 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.
She appeared in previews of the Neil Simon play Rose's Dilemma at the Manhattan Theatre Club in December 2003 but left before the show opened.
In 1955, aged 18, she married Richard 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.
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.
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.
Mary also adopted a Golden Retriever puppy from Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue in Hudson, Massachusetts.
Moore is a pesco-vegetarian (pescetarian) 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."
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." |
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Mary Tyler Moore Quote(s)
| There is a dark side. I tend not to be as optimistic as Mary Richards. I have an anger in me that I carry from my childhood experiences -- I expect a lot of myself and I'm not too kind to myself. |
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