Monday, January 30, 2017

IN MEMORIAM - Mary Tyler Moore 1936-2017

"TV pioneer Mary Tyler Moore was a modern woman's role model" PBS NewsHour 1/25/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  She had an iconic smile and laugh, but actress and comedian Mary Tyler Moore was also a revolutionary.  The Oscar-nominated actress famously played a single career woman next door and a quirky housewife, changing how women were portrayed.  Jeffrey Brown reflects on her life with Cynthia Littleton of Variety; and Dick Cavett, a former friend of the late television icon, who died at the age of 80.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  It was sitcom television that signaled and helped push larger cultural change, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in the 1970s, in which the actress played a single, 30-something working woman, Mary Richards, a TV producer at a local Minneapolis station, here with her boss, played by Ed Asner.

ED ASNER, Actor:  You know what?  You have got spunk.

(LAUGHTER)

MARY TYLER MOORE, Actress:  Well …

ED ASNER:  I hate spunk.

(LAUGHTER)

ED ASNER:  I'll tell you what.  I will try you out for a couple of weeks and see how it works out.  If I don't like you, I will fire you.

MARY TYLER MOORE:  Right, right.

ED ASNER:  If you don't like me, I will fire you.

(LAUGHTER)

MARY TYLER MOORE:  That certainly seems fair.

I will get a towel from the kitchen.

JEFFREY BROWN:  In the '60s, Moore had been a beloved figure in a more traditional role for women, as the frazzled, but often hilarious wife of Dick Van Dyke on the show bearing his name.

MARY TYLER MOORE:  Snow White lived.

(LAUGHTER)

DICK VAN DYKE, Actor:  Oh, what a day.

(LAUGHTER)

JEFFREY BROWN:  Over the years, she won seven Emmy Awards for her television roles, and an Oscar-nominated performance in the 1980 film “Ordinary People,” the story of a disintegrating family following a son's death.

Moore wrote and spoke of her own struggles, a battle with alcoholism, and with the diabetes she lived with for some 40 years.  She was also a champion for animal rights.

Mary Tyler Moore was 80 years old.

A short time ago, I spoke with Dick Cavett.  He interviewed Mary Tyler Moore a number of times over the years, and was a good friend.

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