Illuminating Facts About The Incomparable Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore was already closer than most people get to being a household name when she portrayed Laura Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show, and her energetic performance in the role made the world fall in love with her. However, she proved that she could not only be entertaining on TV but also revolutionize it.
That wasn’t just because of the groundbreaking Mary Tyler Moore Show of the 1970s, as her MTM Enterprises production company brought some of the biggest shows of the era (and not just comedies either) to life. Yet, while that’s an impressive legacy in and of itself, it doesn’t scratch the surface of how interesting Moore’s life was.
Dick Van Dyke Helped Moore’s Career Rebound
According to Mental Floss, the end of The Dick Van Dyke Show brought uncertainty to Moore’s career, as she would soon learn that her post-show film roles proved less successful than she had hoped. Although Thoroughly Modern Millie saw good returns and critical acclaim, it wasn’t enough.
While that was going on, Van Dyke’s wife told him that people often came to her with rumors about his character cheating on Laura Petrie, which led him to create a big special called Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman, inviting Moore to reprise her character. The special proved so popular that CBS approved Moore for 24 episodes of a half-hour show without even seeing a pilot.
She Had A Horrific Childhood
According to Parade, Moore’s family life as a child was hard, as her father tended to be morose and emotionally distant. Her mother also lived with alcoholism, which further complicated her childhood.
Yet, as difficult as these realities were for her, they weren’t what made Moore’s childhood truly nightmarish. When she was six years old, Moore was violated by her neighbor. As Being Mary Tyler Moore director James Adolphus told the magazine, “She had a lot of demons in her childhood. She had to shoulder that for the rest of her life.”
Moore Said Her Most Meaningful Gift Was A Sandwich
Although Moore has received many awards during her illustrious career — including seven Emmys over the course of three decades — footage from Being Mary Tyler Moore taken at her bridal shower revealed that none of it meant as much to her as one tuna sandwich her husband, Robert Levine, once made for her late at night.
While that may sound strange and unexpected, Levine explained why this sandwich was so significant while speaking to Vanity Fair. In his words, “She said that it was one of the most special gifts that anyone had ever given her, because it was given solely for her. That was the moment that convinced her that she really loved me.”
Moore’s First Television Gig Was As An Elf In An Ad Series
Before Moore had any acting experience, she was trained as a dancer. This presented an unusual opportunity to start building her resumé, as her skills led the home appliance company Hotpoint to cast her as “Happy the Hotpoint Elf,” who is moved to dance by the company’s products.
She shot her first commercial in 1955 and ended up appearing in 39 of them before the company fired her. According to Remind Magazine, this was because she became pregnant and Hotpoint apparently didn’t like the idea of being represented by a pregnant elf.
She Made TV Producers Regret Underestimating Her
After Hotpoint commercials, Moore secured her first recurring TV role in the show Richard Diamond, Private Detective, where she played the switchboard operator, Sam. However, she was only shot from behind or from the waist down and wasn’t listed in the credits, supposedly to build mystique.
According to Remind Magazine, Moore approached the show’s producers after 12 episodes, asking for a raise. Rather than simply saying “no,” they fired her. However, Moore quickly turned this sudden downturn to her advantage by publicly revealing herself as Sam. This not only wrecked the producers’ “mystique” but elevated her career by attracting magazine profiles and interviews.
Moore’s Career Thrived In 1980, But Tragedy Struck
Moore gave birth to Richard Meeker Jr. in 1955, and while Meeker fell into narcotics use as a teenager, he was able to reconcile with his mother after he cleaned up. According to People, Moore shared regrets of her own, as her career often kept her absent when he was a child, and, as she put it, “I demanded a lot of Richie. I was responsible for a lot of alienation.”
Although 1980 saw Moore earn an Oscar nomination for the movie Ordinary People and win a Tony for Whose Life Is It Anyway?, her career success was overshadowed by a personal tragedy. While he was fiddling with a gun that has since been discontinued for its sensitive trigger, Meeker accidentally experienced a self-inflicted wound and passed away at the age of 24.
Moore Was A Champion For Animal Rights
In addition to being a vegetarian, Moore was passionate about the welfare of animals to the point of starting a foundation dedicated to facilitating animal adoptions called Broadway Barks. Specifically, she co-founded the organization with actress and singer Bernadette Peters, who kept it going after Moore had to step away for health reasons in 2013.
Although it’s unclear exactly how many animals have been adopted as a result of the Broadway Barks annual Adopt-a-thon events, the 2007 event alone was responsible for finding new homes for over 100 furry friends. Considering that these events have been going on for over 25 years, they’ve surely made a significant collective impact by now.
Moore Insisted On Doing Her Own Stunts At 64
Long after both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the spin-off, Rhoda, had ended, Moore and Rhoda actress Valerie Harper reunited for a TV movie called Mary and Rhoda in 2000. While chasing a stray dog in high heels, Moore’s character tumbles to the ground in a scene.
A stuntwoman was originally supposed to handle this part, but Moore insisted on handling the pratfall herself. According to Time, she later said, “I became airborne and did a three-point landing.” She broke two bones in her right wrist, and since one of them was called the capitatum, she said, “Sounds like losing one’s head, which is what I did when I suggested doing this stunt.”
She Was Supposed To Play A Divorcee On Her Show
When Moore was developing The Mary Tyler Moore Show with Allan Burns, James L. Brooks, and her second husband, Grant Tinker, they envisioned making her character a recently divorced 30-year-old woman with a Jewish woman from New York as her best friend. According to Mental Floss, CBS researchers warned Burns that viewers in middle America would not accept New Yorkers, Jewish characters, divorced people, and men with mustaches for some reason.
Burns was unconvinced when it came to Rhoda’s character, and she remained a Jewish New Yorker who audiences grew to like despite an initial icy reception from test audiences. However, they did see reason to change Moore’s backstory from featuring a divorce to a broken engagement because test audiences still saw her as Laura Petrie and hated the idea of her divorcing Van Dyke.
Mimsie The Cat Was Expressly Rescued For The MTM Logo
Those who watched any amount of TV during the ’70s or ’80s will remember the MTM Enterprises logo, which featured a tiny orange tabby cat mewing adorably. Her name was Mimsie, and according to Mental Floss, she was sought out after Grant Tinker suggested Moore name her production company MTM Enterprises.
Moore was flattered, and when their staff realized the name sounded similar to MGM Studios, they had the idea to replace MGM’s grand lion with a meek kitten, since they were a much smaller company. They sought out a cat with the loudest mew they could find — with orange fur to match MGM’s lion — at a Minneapolis animal shelter. Mimsie got the part and lived in San Bernardino, California, until her passing at 20.
Elvis Presley Confessed An Adorably Wholesome Crush
When Moore was trying to make it in Hollywood, she starred in the 1969 movie Change of Habit alongside Elvis Presley. In her memoir After All, Moore described Presley as a consummate professional who took extra care to ensure a seven-year-old actress felt comfortable with him.
However, one of the most endearing moments for her came when he confessed go having a crush on her since The Dick Van Dyke Show. As she recounted, “He was so shy about it, he was literally kicking at the dirt below him as he talked. He had a tendency, even though I was younger, to call me
‘ma’am’ out of respect: ‘Yes ma’am. Be right there, ma’am.'”
She Almost Skipped The Biggest Audition Of Her Career
Prior to Moore’s casting as Laura Petrie in 1961, she saw good reason to be discouraged in her earliest attempts to further her acting career. As she said on The View in 2004, she spent this period auditioning for everything she could find, and one particularly bad week saw her get rejection after rejection.
As she put it, “And I got a call from my agent saying, ‘Carl Reiner wants to see you about being the wife of Dick Van Dyke on a new series.’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not going. I can’t take any more rejection.’ And he said, ‘Get over there, now.’ And I did, and oh boy.”
The Owner Of The House Moore Filmed At Hated The Experience
According to Mental Floss, The Mary Tyler Moore Show put Mary Richards’s first apartment in a 1892 Queen Anne Victorian home owned by Paula Giese and her husband at the time. She maintained that she had been told her house would be filmed once for a documentary rather than repeatedly for a TV series.
However that misunderstanding happened, Giese grew incensed by constant visits from the show’s fans (who literally showed up by the busload) and saw a golden opportunity to make the show use someone else’s house. She put up a bunch of “impeach Nixon” signs on her lawn, which deterred the producers from using the house, and Mary Richards had to move.
Moore Met The Love Of Her Life By Chance
According to Parade, Moore’s usual doctor was unavailable when her mother fell ill after a trip to Paris, which meant that Levine ended up examining her mother at a New York hospital. After he told Moore to call in the event of any problems, she asked if “acute loneliness” counted, to which he said, “I can’t think of a better reason to be awakened at 3 a.m.”
She made a social call a few nights later, and the rest is history. As Levine told the magazine, “I was in medical school when she was on TV, so I didn’t have a sense of how famous she was. I think that made her comfortable with
me — there was no fan stuff in the middle.”
She Starred In A Bizarre Show That Mixed Disco And The Bible
Shortly before the final season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore starred in Mary’s Incredible Dream in January 1976. It was a musical variety show with funk and disco musical stylings, but was particularly centered around a psychedelic dream she supposedly had.
In this dream, she’s depicting visiting the Garden of Eden and encountering Satan, who was played by Broadway star Ben Vereen. Apparently, there was also a number in which the Manhattan Transfer sang the Rolling Stones song, “Sympathy for the Devil.”
