Emmy-winning actress Mary Tyler Moore,
who brightened American television screens as the perky suburban
housewife on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," and then as a fledgling
feminist on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," died on Wednesday at
the age of 80, a representative said.
Moore, who won seven Emmy Awards for her television work,
died in the company of friends and her husband, Dr. S. Robert
Levine, representative Mara Buxbaum said in a statement.
She had been seriously ill over the past two years, when she
was in and out of hospitals and suffered from heart and kidney
problems, close friends said. She was a diabetic, and in 2011
she had a benign brain tumor removed.
Moore also was nominated in 1981 for an Academy Award for
the film "Ordinary People," playing a character very different
from her TV roles - an icy woman coping with a suicide attempt
by her 18-year-old son.
Robert Redford, who directed the movie, said in a statement
that her "energy, spirit and talent created a new bright spot in
the television landscape and she will be very much missed. The
courage she displayed in taking on a role darker than anything
she had ever done was brave and enormously powerful."
Moore's eponymous show and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" were
both among the most popular sitcoms of their time, with the
former ranking seventh and the latter No. 20 on TV Guide's 2013
list of best television shows.
Moore, asked by Reuters in 2012 when she was given the SAG
lifetime achievement award how she wanted to be remembered,
said: "As a good chum. As somebody who was happy most of the
time and took great pride in making people laugh when I was able
to pull that off."
Ed Asner, who acted alongside Moore in "The Mary Tyler Moore
Show," mourned her death on Twitter, writing: "#marytylermoore
my heart goes out to you and your family. Know that I love you
and believe in your strength."
Longtime TV interviewer Larry King on Twitter called Moore
"a dear friend and a truly great person. A fighter."
Moore had emerged on television in the early 1960s when many
of the women in leading roles were traditional, apron-wearing
stay-at-home moms like June Cleaver on "Leave It to Beaver."
Moore's bright-eyed Laura Petrie character was prone to
moaning "Oh, Rob!" at her husband in moments of exasperation on
"The Dick Van Dyke Show," but she chipped away at that
stereotype. For one thing, she wore stylish pants rather than
house dresses and styled her hair like Jacqueline Kennedy's.
Moore's Mary Richards character on "The Mary Tyler Moore
Show" went even farther. Mary Richards focused on her career as
an assistant producer for the news show at television station
WJM in Minneapolis and was determined to fulfill the lyrics of
the show's theme song - "You're going to make it after all" - as
she joyously flung her beret into the air in the show's opening
credits.
While she may have had conservative Midwestern values and
been a bit naive and prim, 30-ish Mary Richards was, by 1970s
television sitcom standards, a budding feminist. She lived on
her own, was not hunting a husband and protested that she was
not being paid as much as a male counterpart.
"You've got spunk"
Asner, playing Mary's gruff boss, Lou Grant, summed up her
character and their relationship in the show's first episode.
"You know what?" he growled at her. "You've got spunk. I
hate spunk!"
"The Mary Tyler Moore Show," whose seven-year run ended in
1977, had a solid cast and great writers and won the Emmy for
best comedy in each of its final three seasons. It was the
cornerstone of MTM Enterprises, the company Moore and
then-husband Grant Tinker used to launch three spin-offs - "Lou
Grant," "Rhoda" and "Phyllis" - as well as other hit shows such
as "The Bob Newhart Show," "WKRP in Cincinnati," "Hill Street
Blues" and "St. Elsewhere."
One of New York-born Moore's first entertainment jobs was
appearing as Happy Hotpoint, a singing and dancing pixie in
television commercials for Hotpoint appliances. In 1961 she was
cast on "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Moore won two supporting
actress Emmys for that show and four best-actress Emmys for "The
Mary Tyler Moore Show."
"I'm not an innately funny person," she told The New York
Times. "I find it an almost overbearing responsibility when I
think about having to be funny. I like simply standing next to
the funny person. Just being part of what caused the laughter is
great fun for me."
Moore won an Emmy in 1993 for the TV movie "Stolen Babies,"
giving her a total of seven for her career, including one
special Emmy in 1974 as actress of the year. She was nominated
nine other times.
She was given a special Tony Award for her work in "Whose
Life Is It Anyway" on Broadway.
Off-screen struggles
Moore's life was not all awards and perky television
characters. She grew up in New York and Los Angeles with an
alcoholic mother, a demanding father and many self-doubts. When
she became a mother herself, she felt guilty about not spending
more time with her son, Richard, when he was young.
Shortly after "Ordinary People" came out in 1980, Richard,
24, was killed when a shotgun he was handling discharged - a
death that was ruled accidental.
Moore's 19-year marriage to Tinker ended in divorce in 1981
amid what she said was a lot of drinking and too little talking.
She eventually went into rehab at the Betty Ford Center.
During her time on "The Mary Tyler Moore" show, Moore was
diagnosed with diabetes, which affected her vision in later
years.
After the end of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," Moore tried
two variety shows but neither caught on. Two other shows set in
newsrooms - "Mary," in which she played a newspaper columnist,
and "New York News," starring Moore as a newspaper publisher -
also were short-lived.
Moore still appeared frequently in one-off television roles
and in plays. In 2003 she quit the Broadway play "Rose's
Dilemma," however, after playwright Neil Simon sent her a letter
shortly before curtain time saying, "Learn your lines or get out
of my play."
In 2013, she appeared on the TV show "Hot in Cleveland" for
two episodes.
Moore, who became an activist for diabetes research and
animal rights, wed for a third time in 1983, marrying Levine, a
cardiologist who had treated her mother.
Tinker, who Moore described as her mentor, died in November.