BEHIND HER SMILE
Documentary goes beyond Mary Tyler Moore’s cheery public facade
‘BEING MARY TYLER MOORE” unfolds like a filmed version of an immersive literary biography, delving beneath Moore’s cheerily enigmatic public facade to reveal her personal struggles, triumphs and tragedies — including the death of her 24-year-old son and her sister’s lethal overdose.
The documentary, co-produced by Lena Waithe and directed by James Adolphus, covers all the familiar bases of Moore’s career, including “The Dick Van Dyke Show ,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” her Oscar-nominated role in “Ordinary People” and her Broadway triumph in “Whose Life Is It Anyway?”
It also treads unfamiliar ground vis-a-vis her lesser-known TV roles (“Richard Diamond, Private Detective,” playing an elf in Hotpoint ads in the ’50s) and includes neverbefore-seen footage — including video of Moore’s party prior to her marrying her third husband, Dr. Robert Levine, in 1983, where her former co-star Betty White steals the show.
Friends and colleagues, including Ed Asner, Beverly Sanders, Norman Lear, James Brooks and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” writer Susan Silver help narrate the jigsaw puzzle of Moore’s life via off-camera interviews — some recent, some archival — leaving the documentary to laser-focus on Moore, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 80. “I learned so much about her — even the look on her face when Rona Barrett was interviewing her [for a TV show] and the way her face subtly reacted to things,” Silver told The Post. “She was very private and very friendly, always, but wasn’t very open. I was close to [‘TMTMS’ co-stars] Valerie [Harper] and Ed …but Mary was very closed off ... and now I understand why.” Moore segued from her Emmywinning turn as suburban housewife Laura Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (1961-66) to her iconic role as single career woman Mary Richards on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” for which she snared four Emmys. The series premiered on CBS in 1970 in tandem with the rise of the Women’s Liberation movement; Moore is described in the documentary as “a feminine feminist,” happy to publicly support the cause yet leading a different life in private with husband Grant Tinker, who ran their joint production company (they divorced in 1981).
“That wasn’t her life,” Silver said of Moore’s onscreen persona. “She wasn’t that into feminism. But the show was open to women; don’t forget, there were very few women writing TV before that … Over the course of the series there were 25 women writing for the show.”
[Silver, who also wrote for, among others, “The Bob Newhart Show ,” “The Partridge Family” and “Maude,” wrote five episodes for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” including “The Square-Shaped Room,” for which Ed Asner won an Emmy. He gave Silver a shout-out when accepting his award.]
The documentary doesn’t gloss over Moore’s foibles; she became belligerent after a few drinks, could be “aloof and reserved” and had a tense relationship with her frosty parents, who were unable to show her any love. Her life changed for the better when she met and married Levine, 18 years her junior, while her career branched off into different directions: “Ordinary People” (her son, Richard Meeker, died from a gunshot wound six weeks after the movie opened), “Whose Life?” (she won a special Tony Award) and helping to raise millions for the Juvenile Diabetes Association. “It’s so corny to say, but she turned the world on with her smile,” said Silver, paraphrasing a line from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” theme song. “And that was the greatest thing.”
“Being Mary Tyler Moore” premieres May 26 at 8 p.m. on HBO.