Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore Headshot

Comedian • Actress • Producer

Birth Date: December 29, 1936

Death Date: January 25, 2017

Birth Place: Brooklyn, New York

Spouses: Grant Tinker

An iconic modern woman who embodied classic American archetypes--suburban homemaker and independent single woman--in two very different, but very successful sitcoms, Mary Tyler Moore also made an enormous contribution to television history as the producer of numerous acclaimed comedies and dramas of the 1970s and 1980s.

Audiences first fell in love with Moore as a believable symbol of the smart, young, pants-wearing mom on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (CBS, 1961-66) before she came to signify a new breed of independent, liberated professional woman on the Emmy-winning sitcom, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (CBS, 1970-77).

In addition to her longstanding reputation for comedy, Moore delivered a powerful, Oscar-nominated performance in the 1980 feature "Ordinary People," in addition to starring in over a dozen television movies. As co-founder of MTM Productions, Moore was integral to the success of top rated "Mary Tyler Moore" spin-offs "Rhoda" (CBS, 1974-78) and "Lou Grant" (CBS, 1977-82), as well as "The Bob Newhart Show" (CBS, 1972-78) and the police drama "Hill Street Blues" (NBC, 1981-87).

Though her career slowed down in later years, Moore remained active in numerous charities and causes, particularly related to Type 1 diabetes, which she was diagnosed with early in her career. Because of her contributions to television, Moore remained a timeless icon whose influence with subsequent generations of female performers remained incalculable. Her death on January 25, 2017 at the age of 80 was greeted with worldwide mourning from fans and peers alike.

Born on Dec. 29, 1936, in Brooklyn, NY, Moore was raised in nearby Queens until the age of eight when the family moved to Los Angeles. Moore attended strict Catholic schools, but studied ballet with dreams of someday becoming a dancer. Fresh out of Immaculate Heart High School, she landed her first show business job as a singing and dancing elf named Happy Hotpoint, promoting kitchen appliances in television commercials.

She married salesman Richard Meeker and hung up her elf costume when she became pregnant with her only child, Richard Jr., who was born only months after Moore's own mother, Marjorie, gave birth to daughter Elizabeth. Moore resumed her career in 1959 when her legs and voice were featured in the role of a switchboard operator on the mystery series "Richard Diamond, Private Eye" (CBS-NBC, 1957-1960).

Following a dozen guest appearances on shows like "77 Sunset Strip" (ABC, 1958-1964) and "Hawaiian Eye" (ABC, 1959-1963), Moore was cast as the young wife of a television comedy writer (Dick Van Dyke) on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," a semi-autobiographical sitcom created by Carl Reiner. While she was in the midst of divorcing her first husband off-screen, Moore brought a down-to-earth believability and maturity to her onscreen role and was crucial to the success of its often daring subject matter.

With her standard wardrobe of Capri pants signaling an end to the era of the dress-and-apron clad June Cleaver, Moore became a symbol of the new era of modern mom, resonating strongly with audiences and earning Emmy Awards for her work in 1964 and 1965. The beloved star also won the heart of television executive Grant Tinker, whom she married in 1962. "The Dick Van Dyke Show" was still popular when producers decided to bow out gracefully after five seasons, at which time Moore returned to the stage opposite Richard Chamberlain in an ill-fated stage musical adaptation of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1966).

Moore stuck close to her first love of song and dance for the next few years, co-starring alongside Julie Andrews, Carol Channing and Beatrice Lillie in the lavish 1920s musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (1967), which she followed by playing a nun with a wandering eye for a handsome young doctor (Elvis Presley) in "Change of Habit" (1969). Later that year, she made her first television movie with "Run a Crooked Mile" (1969), which allowed viewers to see the serious dramatic side of her talent.

Several years had passed before she was approached by CBS, and offered a deal to develop and star in her own sitcom. Moore and Tinker wisely formed a production company, MTM, and inked a deal that would give ultimate creative control of the series to MTM Productions.

Her company's first project, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," chronicled the life of an independent thirty-ish professional female navigating a career, friendships and dating life. The show was the first to feature such an unprecedented "liberated" woman as the lead. Once again, Moore found herself at the forefront of the changing image of women on television with her role as an evening news producer and single woman who alluded to sex and birth control. As producer, Moore was key in assembling an outstanding writing staff and a supporting cast including Edward Asner as her gruff boss, Valerie Harper as her brash best friend and Ted Knight as news station WJM's dimwitted anchor. Moore was nominated for a Lead Actress Emmy every year during the show's seven-year run, taking home wins in 1973, 1974 and 1976, while the show itself amassed over 29 awards.

In 1972, Moore and MTM productions launched their second series, "The Bob Newhart Show," which carried MTM's hallmark quality writing and acting and became another of television's most respected programs. Meanwhile, Moore produced the first "Mary Tyler Moore" spin-off "Rhoda," an Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning success based around Harper's character returning to New York. Another spinoff series, "Phyllis" (CBS, 1975-177), which was centered on Moore's unlikable landlord (Cloris Leachman), was cancelled after its second season. Likewise, "The Tony Randall Show" (ABC/CBS, 1976-78), suffered the same fate and was axed after two seasons. Like Dick Van Dyke before her, Moore chose to end "Mary Tyler Moore" while on a high note. By the time the final episode aired in 1977, Moore was a beloved figure and winner of the People's Choice Award for Favorite Female Television performer. Moore and MTM productions launched the spin-off "Lou Grant" the same year and enjoyed more critical success for the straight-ahead drama whose format allowed Grant (Edward Asner), an editor of a Los Angeles newspaper, to explore social issues and current events.

As an actress known for comedy, Moore was anxious to explore her dramatic side, which she did with the TV-movie, "First You Cry" (CBS, 1978), earning an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of a reporter battling breast cancer. Meanwhile, Moore's off-screen life took a tragic turn when she divorced from Tinker, while suffering the pain of losing her sister, Elizabeth, to a drug overdose, and her only son, Richard, to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She continued to helm MTM ventures, which included the cult hit "WKRP in Cincinnati" (CBS, 1978-1982), while exploring painful territory onstage in the hit Broadway play "Whose Life Is It, Anyway?" which earned her a Tony Award for playing a quadriplegic sculptor fighting to determine her own destiny. Further proving her range and distancing herself from her television persona was a riveting portrayal of a strained mother coping with the suicide of one son and the resulting suicide attempt of the other (Timothy Hutton) in Robert Redford's "Ordinary People" (1980). She received an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe win for the heavy-hitting family drama. In 1981, MTM rolled out another successful dramatic series, "Hill Street Blues."

Whether or not the combination of real-life and onscreen tragedy was to blame, Moore entered a rehabilitation program for alcohol addiction in 1982. She returned to the big screen in "Six Weeks" (1982), which again found her exploring the modern professional matriarch melodrama. She delivered award-nominated performances in television movie dramas "Heartsounds" (ABC, 1984) and "Finnegan Begin Again" (HBO, 1985), then attempted to revisit sitcom glory with "Mary" (CBS, 1985-86), a newspaper-set comedy that failed to score with audiences and was cancelled after 13 episodes. Moore had better success with a long run Broadway comedy, "Sweet Sue," before offering an acclaimed portrait of the first lady opposite Sam Waterston in "Gore Vidal's Lincoln" (NBC, 1988). Another stab at Moore-centric sitcom, "Annie McGuire" (1988), lasted less than one season, which was followed in 1990 by Moore and ex-husband Tinker selling MTM Productions.

Following a string of TV films including "Stolen Babies" (Lifetime, 1993), where she earned an Emmy for playing a spinster trafficking in illegal adoptions, Moore returned to series television in a supporting role as a hard-driving newspaper editor in the short-lived drama, "New York News" (CBS, 1995). She had a supporting role as an adoptive parent of a grown child (Ben Stiller) searching for his birth parents in "Flirting with Disaster" (1996), then enjoyed a recurring role as Tea Leoni's mother on Leoni's sitcom "The Naked Truth" (NBC, 1995-98). In 2000, Moore reunited with Valerie Harper in the TV movie "Mary and Rhoda" (ABC), which depicted both actresses revisiting their classic characters Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern - one a widow, the other a divorceé - as they rekindle their friendship in New York. The Moore-produced movie was a means to test the waters for an anticipated sitcom sequel, but the project received middling reviews and ratings.

Moore produced and starred in the true crime biopic "Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes" (CBS, 2001), playing a con artist, thief and murder. Her performance earned her a fresh round of critical accolades. She maintained her position as a television movie mainstay with films including "Miss Lettie and Me" (TNT, 2002), where she played a cantankerous elderly Southern woman, and "Blessings" (CBS, 2003), based on the Anna Quindlan novel about an abandoned baby found on an aged woman's estate. She reunited with Dick Van Dyke and a large number of her former cast mates in the nostalgic "The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited" (TV Land, 2004), then faced off with Van Dyke in a PBS version of D.L. Coburn's stage play "The Gin Game," where the old co-stars showcased their old spark playing two residents of a nursing home whose gin rummy games bring out the best and worst in them.

Still happily working at the age of 70, Moore continued to appear annually in made-for-television movies, finding herself to be an increasingly popular sitcom guest star. In 2006, she enjoyed a recurring run as a high-strung TV host on "That '70s Show" (Fox, 1998-2006). Two years later, she revisited the world of the working woman with a multi-episode arc on the fashion-set comedy "Lipstick Jungle" (NBC, 2008-09). While focusing on her charity work, Moore found time to take the occasional acting job, but her final screen role came in the indie drama "Against the Current" (2009).

In 2011, she reunited with old friend Betty White to make a pair of guest appearances on the sitcom "Hot in Cleveland" (TV Land, 2010-15). That same year, Moore had surgery to remove a benign tumor from the lining tissue of her skull, a routine procedure from which she recovered quickly. Mary Tyler Moore died of complications from pneumonia in Greenwich, Connecticut on January 25, 2017. She was 80 years old.

Credits

The Dick Van Dyke Show -- Now in Living Color!

Actor
Laura Petrie
Show
2021

The Dick Van Dyke Show -- Now in Living Color! A Special Tribute to Carl Reiner

Actor
Laura Petrie
Show
2020

The Dick Van Dyke Show -- Now in Living Color!

Actor
Laura Petrie
Show
2018

The Dick Van Dyke Show -- Now in Living Color!

Actor
Laura Petrie
Show
2017

The Dick Van Dyke Show - Now in Living Color!

Actor
Laura Petrie
Show
2016

Inequality for All

Actor
.Mary Richards
Movie
2013

Katie

Guest
Talk
2012

Christmas With Danny Kaye Featuring Nat King Cole

Actor
Show
2011

Hollywood Hair

Actor
Show
2011

Hot in ClevelandStream

Guest Star
Diane
Series
2010

Against the Current

Actor
Liz' Mom
Movie
2009

The 60th Primetime Emmy Awards

Guest
Show
2008

The Bonnie Hunt Show

Guest
Talk
2008

Lipstick JungleStream

Guest Star
Joyce
Series
2008
19%

Rachael Ray ShowStream

Guest
Talk
2006

Snow Wonder

Actor
Aunt Lula
Movie
2005

The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited

Actor
Show
2004

The Gin Game

Actor
Show
2003

Blessings

Actor
Lydia Blessing
Movie
2003

Cheats

Actor
Mrs. Stark, Principal
Movie
2002

Miss Lettie and Me

Actor
Lettie Anderson
Movie
2002

The Ellen Show

Guest Star
Show
2001

PBS Hollywood Presents

Actor
Show
2001

Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes

Actor
Sante Chambers Kimes/Eva Guerrero
Movie
2001

Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes

Executive Producer
Movie
2001

Mary and Rhoda

Actor
Mary Richards Cronin
Movie
2000

Mary and Rhoda

Executive Producer
Movie
2000

Labor Pains

Actor
Esther Raymond
Movie
2000

The Early Show

Guest
Show
1999

That '70s ShowStream

Guest Star
Series
1998

The View

Guest
Talk
1997

King of the HillStream

Guest Voice
Rev. Stroup
Series
1997

PaybackStream

Actor
Kathryn Stanfill
Movie
1997

Keys to Tulsa

Actor
Cynthia Boudreau
Movie
1997

How the Toys Saved Christmas

Voice
Granny Rose
Movie
1997

Access Hollywood

Guest
News
1996

Stolen Memories: Secrets From the Rose Garden

Actor
Jessica
Movie
1996

Flirting With Disaster

Actor
Mrs. Coplin
Movie
1996

New York News

Actor
Show
1995

The Naked TruthStream

Guest Star
Series
1995
64%

Extra

Guest
News
1994

Inside the Actors Studio

Guest
Talk
1994

EllenStream

Guest Star
Series
1994

FrasierStream

Guest Voice
Marjorie
Series
1993
95%

Late Show With David Letterman

Guest
Talk
1993

Stolen Babies

Actor
Georgia Tann
Movie
1993

The Last Best Year

Actor
Wendy Haller
Movie
1990

Thanksgiving Day

Actor
Paula Schloss
Movie
1989

The Good Family

Actor
Paula Schloss
Movie
1989

Annie McGuire

Actor
Annie McGuire
Show
1988

LincolnStream

Actor
Movie
1988

Lincoln

Actor
Show
1988

The Oprah Winfrey ShowStream

Guest
Talk
1986

Just Between Friends

Actor
Holly Davis
Movie
1986

Mary

Actor
Mary Brenner
Show
1985

Finnegan Begin Again

Actor
Liz DeHaan
Movie
1985

Heartsounds

Actor
Martha Weinman Lear
Movie
1984

Six WeeksStream

Actor
Charlotte Dreyfus
Movie
1982

Ordinary PeopleStream

Actor
Beth Jarrett
Movie
1980
89%

Password PlusStream

Guest
Game Show
1979

First You Cry

Actor
Betty Rollin
Movie
1978

The 28th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards

Host
Show
1976

Good Morning America

Guest
News
1975

Saturday Night LiveStream

Host
Series
1975

Rhoda

Guest Star
Series
1974

The 25th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards

Self
Show
1973

The Mary Tyler Moore ShowStream

Actor
Mary Richards
Series
1970

The Mary Tyler Moore ShowStream

Director
Series
1970

Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman

Actor
Show
1969

Change of Habit

Actor
Sister Michelle
Movie
1969

Run a Crooked Mile

Actor
Elizabeth Sutton
Movie
1969

The Dick Cavett ShowStream

Guest
Talk
1968

Don't Just Stand There

Actor
Lawrence Colby
Movie
1968

What's So Bad About Feeling Good?

Actor
Liz
Movie
1968

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Actor
Miss Dorothy Brown
Movie
1967
86%

The Danny Kaye ShowStream

Guest
Variety Show
1963

The Danny Kaye ShowStream

Guest Star
Variety Show
1963

The Dick Van Dyke ShowStream

Actor
Laura Petrie
Series
1961

X-15

Actor
Pamela Stewart
Movie
1961

Surfside 6

Guest Star
Series
1960

ThrillerStream

Actor
Series
1960

Hawaiian Eye

Guest Star
Series
1959

The DeputyStream

Guest Star
Series
1959

Johnny Staccato

Guest Star
Series
1959

77 Sunset Strip

Actor
Marie Drew
Series
1958

77 Sunset Strip

Guest Star
Laura Chandler
Series
1958

Bronco

Guest Star
Series
1958

Wanted Dead or AliveStream

Guest Star
Series
1958

Richard Diamond, Private Detective

Actor
Sam
Show
1957

Schlitz Playhouse

Actor
Show
1951

News aboutMary Tyler Moore