Mary Tyler Moore (December 29, 1936 – January 25, 2017) was an American actress, producer, and social advocate. She is best known for her roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) and especially The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977), which "helped define a new vision of American womanhood" and "appealed to an audience facing the new trials of modern-day existence". Moore won seven Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Ordinary People.[8][9][10] Moore had major supporting roles in the musical film Thoroughly Modern Millie and the dark comedy film Flirting with Disaster. Moore also received praise for her performance in the television film Heartsounds. Moore was an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism and diabetes awareness and research.
Early life
Moore was born in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City, to Marjorie (née Hackett) and George Tyler Moore. Her father was a clerk. Her Irish-Catholic family lived in a rental apartment in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood, then the family later lived in a rented apartment at 144-16 35th Avenue in Flushing, Queens.
Moore was the oldest of three children, with a younger brother John and a younger sister Elizabeth. Moore's paternal great-grandfather, Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Tilghman Moore, owned the house that is now the Stonewall Jackson's Headquarters Museum in Winchester, Virginia.
When Moore was eight years old, the family relocated to Los Angeles, California, at the recommendation of her uncle, an employee of MCA. She was raised Catholic and attended St. Rose of Lima Parochial School in Brooklyn until the third grade. In Los Angeles, Moore attended Saint Ambrose School and Immaculate Heart High School in the Los Feliz neighborhood.
Moore's sister Elizabeth died at age 21 "from a combination of ... painkillers and alcohol." Her brother died at the age of 47 from kidney cancer.[21]
Career
Television
Early appearances
Moore's television career began in 1955 with a job as "Happy Hotpoint", a tiny elf dancing on Hotpoint home appliances in TV commercials that ran during breaks on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. After appearing in 39 Hotpoint commercials in five days, she received approximately $6,000 (equivalent to $55,000 in 2023). She became pregnant while still working as "Happy", and Hotpoint ended her work when it became too difficult to conceal her pregnancy with the elf costume. Moore was an uncredited photographic model for record album covers, many for the Tops Records label, and auditioned for the role of the elder daughter of Danny Thomas for his long-running TV show, but was turned down. Much later, Thomas explained that "she missed it by a nose ... no daughter of mine could ever have a nose that small".
Moore's first regular television role was as 'Sam' a mysterious and glamorous telephone switchboard operator/receptionist in the very popular series Richard Diamond, Private Detective with David Janssen. It was often erroneously reported her voice was heard; however, only her legs and occasionally her hands appeared on camera but not her face, adding to the character's mystique. Her legs appeared in episode three of the third season, but she was cleverly shot above the waist in other episodes with her face at least partially hidden. About this time, she guest-starred in John Cassavetes' NBC detective series Johnny Staccato, and also in the series premiere of The Tab Hunter Show in September 1960 and the Bachelor Father episode "Bentley and the Big Board" in December 1960. In 1961, Moore appeared in several big parts in movies and on television, including Bourbon Street Beat; 77 Sunset Strip; Surfside 6; Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen; Steve Canyon; Hawaiian Eye; Thriller and Lock-Up. She also appeared in a February 1962 episode of Straightaway.
The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966)
In 1961, Carl Reiner cast Moore in The Dick Van Dyke Show, a weekly series based on Reiner's own life and career as a writer for Sid Caesar's television variety show Your Show of Shows, telling the cast from the outset that it would run for no more than five years. The show was produced by Danny Thomas' company, and Thomas himself recommended her. He remembered Moore as "the girl with three names" whom he had turned down earlier.[32] Moore's energetic comic performances as Van Dyke's character's wife, begun at age 24 (eleven years Van Dyke's junior), made both the actress and her signature fitted capri pants extremely popular, and she became internationally known. When she won her first Emmy Award for her portrayal of Laura Petrie, she said, "I know this will never happen again." As Laura Petrie, Moore often wore styles that recalled the fashion of Jackie Kennedy, such as capri pants, echoing an ideal of the Kennedy administration's Camelot.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977)
In 1970, after performing in the one-hour musical special Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman, Moore and husband Grant Tinker successfully pitched a sitcom that centered on Moore to CBS. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a half-hour newsroom sitcom featuring Ed Asner as her gruff boss Lou Grant. The Mary Tyler Moore Show bridged aspects of the Women's Movement with mainstream culture by portraying an amiable, independent woman whose life focused on her professional career rather than marriage and family. The show marked the first big hit for film and television producer James L. Brooks, who would also do more work for Moore and Tinker's production company. Moore's show proved so popular that three regular characters, Valerie Harper as Rhoda Morgenstern, Cloris Leachman as Phyllis Lindstrom, and Ed Asner as Lou Grant spun off into their own three separate series playing the same characters, albeit with Lou Grant being an hour-long drama instead of a half-hour sitcom.
Personal life
At age 18 in 1955, Moore married her next-door neighbor, 28-year-old cranberry juice salesman Richard Meeker, and within six weeks she was pregnant with her only child, Richard Carleton Meeker Jr., born on July 3, 1956. Meeker and Moore divorced in 1962. Later that year, Moore married Grant Tinker, a CBS executive and later chairman of NBC, and in 1969 they formed the television production company MTM Enterprises, which created and produced the company's first television series, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. After a 1973 breakup and patch-up, Moore and Tinker announced a permanent separation in 1979 and divorced two years later. In the early 1980s, Moore dated Steve Martin and Warren Beatty. Another relationship, with British Film and Television Director Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg, ended when she wanted to be exclusive and he didn't.
On October 14, 1980, Moore's son Richard died of an accidental gunshot to the head while handling a small .410 shotgun. He was 24 years old The same model was later taken off the market because of its "hair trigger". Three-and-a-half weeks earlier, Ordinary People had been released where she played a mother who was grieving over the accidental death of her son.
Moore married 29-year-old cardiologist Robert Levine on November 23, 1983, at the Pierre Hotel in New York City. They met in 1982 when he treated Moore's mother in New York City on a weekend house call, after Moore and her mother returned from a visit to the Vatican where they had a personal audience with Pope John Paul II. Moore and Levine remained married for 34 years until her death in 2017.
Moore struggled with alcohol addiction much of her life but quit drinking in 1984 when she admitted herself into the Betty Ford Center. One year after getting sober, she quit her three-pack-a-day cigarette habit.
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Health issues and death
Moore was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1969. In 2011, she had surgery to remove a meningioma, a benign brain tumor. In 2014, friends reported that Moore had heart and kidney problems and was nearly blind from complications related to diabetes.
Moore died at the age of 80 on January 25, 2017, at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut, from cardiopulmonary arrest complicated by pneumonia after having been placed on a ventilator the week before. She was interred in Oak Lawn Cemetery in Fairfield, Connecticut, in a private ceremony.
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- SERVES
- 15
- COOK TIME
- 15 Min
Cheesy Crab Cups are the open-faced version of crab rangoon. These creamy little Cups are great for sophisticated seafood lovers and snack aficionados alike. Make 'em for your next party.
- 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon seafood seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 scallion (green onion), thinly sliced
- 1/4 pound imitation crabmeat, flaked
- 1 (2.1-ounce) box mini phyllo shells (15 per box)
- Preheat oven to 350º.
- In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, Cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, lemon juice, seafood seasoning, and garlic powder just until combined.
- Gently beat in scallion and crabmeat just until evenly mixed. Spoon 1 tablespoon crab mixture into each phyllo shell and place on baking sheets.
- Bake 15 minutes, or until heated through and shells are golden.
