Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore is an American icon, actress and comedian best known for her role as Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s. She played the 30ish single woman who worked as a news producer at WJM-TV in Minneapolis for 96 episodes from 1970 to 1975.
Moore is also well known for her role as Laura Petrie in 50 episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966. In 1980, she received an Oscar nomination for her role as Beth Jarrett in Ordinary People. She also won a Tony Award in 1980 after taking over the lead in the play Whose Life Is It Anyway? She was so good that she was given a special Tony because she was not eligible for a traditional nomination due to being a replacement performer. In 1985 she won another Tony Award for the revival of the play Joe Egg.
Moore was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, on December 29, 1936 as the oldest of three siblings. When she was 17 she landed the role of a dancing appliance – Happy Hotpoint, the Hotpoint Appliance elf, in commercials that were generally broadcasted during the popular 1950s television show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
In 1955, at age 18, she married Dick Meeker and soon afterwards had her only child, Richie Meeker. Meeker and Moore divorced in 1961.
Her next acting role was as sultry Sam, Richard Diamond’s answering service girl on one episode of Richard Diamond, Private Detective in 1959, starring David Janssen. Her performance became notorious because her legs (usually dangling a pump on her toe) were shown instead of her face.
After The Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore landed the role of Holly Golightly in the musical Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1966. After that she appeared in a few movies including Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Change of Habit (1969), and Run a Crooked Mile (TV 1969).
In 1970 she returned to television acting with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The show also featured Gavin MacLeod, Ed Asner, Ted Knight and Valerie Harper.
In 2005, Moore guest-starred in three episodes of That ‘70s Show as Christine St. George, a high-strung fictional TV host. Her scenes were shot on the same soundstage where The Mary Tyler Moore Show had once been filmed.
Moore married Grant Tinker in 1962 and the two formed the television production company MTM Enterprises in 1970. MTM Enterprises created The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Moore and Tinker divorced in 1981 and she married Dr Robert Levine in 1983.
Her only child, Richard Meeker, accidentally shot and killed himself in 1980 when the hair trigger on his gun went off. The model of the gun was eventually removed for the market for that reason.
Moore is the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. She is also a vegetarian and animal rights activist, and is the co-founder of Broadway Barks, an annual animal adopt-a-thon in NYC.
In 1992 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In early May 2002 a statue in downtown Minneapolis was dedicated to the television character she made famous on Mary Tyler Moore. |
