Mary Tyler Moore
Queen of the sitcom: 1936-2017
LET’S tip — better yet throw — a cap to Mary Tyler Moore, an icon who blazed a comedic trail and created TV magic.
Not only did Moore play empowered, beloved characters on two classic series — airing in different decades, no less — but she did so with an elegance, grace and quirky humor previously unseen in a medium rife with cardboard-cutout characters (of both sexes).
As free-spirited suburban housewife Laura Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (1961-66), and later as single career woman Mary Richards on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (1970-77), Moore perfectly captured the
zeitgeist of those two turbulent eras with her raw sincerity and keen sense of humor, playing women unafraid to grab life and take us along for the ride.
Laura Petrie — for which Moore won an Emmy Award — was an updated version of ’50sera Lucy Ricardo on “I Love Lucy”: zany and lovable, but with a more defined edge in “The Dick Van Dyke Show’s” realistic look at life in suburban New Rochelle. Laura loved her comedy-writer husband, Rob (Dick Van Dyke), and their son, Richie, yet wasn’t afraid to be her own person. That it was usually in a self-deprecating way — with a wink and a nod — was part of Moore’s on-screen charm, and a total 180 from TV’s previous portrayal of TV wives. (With few exceptions, they were subservient and ditzy or hen-pecking harridans.)
“She had an extreme grace, based on the fact that she was a dancer, and everything spun off from there,” Carl Reiner, who created (and co-starred in) “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” told me after hearing the news of Moore’s passing. “She was a multitalent. She walked with grace and talked with grace. She melted America every time she did a song and dance on the show with Dick [Van Dyke].”
And how perfect was it that “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” premiered in 1970 — at the birth of a decade in which women’s rights were pushed to the forefront of American’s social consciousness? Mary Richards was an Everywoman for the Women’s Lib ’70s: funny, sisterly, outspoken, smart, sarcastic and empathetic.
“She was an icon and a marvelous woman and I learned by watching her and being promoted by her,” said Moore’s “MTM” co-star Ed Asner (Lou Grant), on the phone Wednesday from Canada. “She was a hard worker and did not resist the challenge; she wasn’t a glory hound and picked and chose very wisely and judiciously.”
Behind the scenes, Moore bypassed the network-suit mentality by producing “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” through her own company, MTM Productions (remember the meowing cat?) and using WJM newswoman Mary Richards as an (often very funny) prism through which to explore social issues previously taboo on television. As one of the show’s producers, she pushed hard for episodes about premarital sex, infidelity, homosexuality and divorce, while tackling the issue of equal pay for women — in sync with Mary Richards’ rise from associate producer to, ultimately, producer of WJM’s newscast.
That Mary was smarter than most of her wisecracking colleagues was lost on no one. And that’s why we loved her. By the time “The Mary Tyler Moore” show ended, it was one of the most honored shows in TV history. (She won four Emmys.)
So here’s to you, Mary, and damn the cliché: You really
take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile.