Being Mary Tyler Moore

A documentary that lasts nearly 2 hours. Worth every minute!

Two of the great T.V. comedies were “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (1961-1966) and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (1970-1977). Both had marvelous casts, but Ms. Moore was the sun around which all the acting talents orbited.

This documentary covers her entire life. Ironically, her role in helping woman’s liberation move forward played out on screen rather than in real life.

She was married 3 times, the last to a doctor 19 years younger. At the time of her death in 2017 they had been married for 33 years. Tragically, her only child, a son, died at the age of 24 from what appeared to be an accidental self-inflicted gunshot.

While the movie gives you a heart-warming view of Ms. Moore’s life on Broadway as well as an Oscar nomination for Robert Redford’s Ordinary People (1980), I would have been quite pleased if the film focused only on her two T.V. series. They are fun to watch to this very day.

Let’s start with the Van Dyke Show. As noted, all of the actors were memorable. It centered on Dick Van Dyke, playing Rob Petrie, and Ms. Moore played his caring wife, Laura. What made the series so consistently funny were the performances of Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Jerry Paris and Carl Reiner.

We should also never forget the important fact that Ms. Moore changed the role of women on T.V. She was the first actress to appear in pants and it left a legendary impact.

And women also benefited from her role in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Though Ed Asner (Lou Grant) and Ted Knight (Ted Baxter) were hysterical at every turn, Mary’s relationship with Valerie Harper (Rhoda), Bettie White (Sue Ann), Cloris Leachman (Phyllis) and Georgia Engel (Georgette) served to remind all women of the value of female friendship and interaction.

I’ll always remember Mary’s performance as Mary Richards as defining a single woman’s role in a tough, male dominated world.

Rest in peace, my dear Ms. Moore.