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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