美国国家公共电台 NPR She Turned The World On With Her Smile: Mary Tyler Moore Dies At 80

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: 

A moment now to remember Mary Tyler Moore. The actress died today at age 80. Moore helped redefine women's roles on TV, first playing the earnest and stylish 1 homemaker Laura Petrie on "The Dick Van Dyke 2 Show" and later playing Mary Richards, the single, young journalist on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Jesse Baker 3 has this tribute.

JESSE BAKER, BYLINE 4: Mary Tyler Moore played the girl who could turn the world on with her smile.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVE IS ALL AROUND")

SONNY CURTIS: (Singing) Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

BAKER: Even 25 years later on WHYY's Fresh Air, Mary Tyler Moore clearly recalled the day she shot the scenes for what was to become that most memorable 5 start to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

MARY TYLER MOORE: It was freezing cold. It was in Minneapolis in January, I think. We didn't know what we were doing. We were just there to grab a lot of footage that shows a young woman's exuberance 6 being in a new city.

BAKER: As Moore tosses her hat in the air, her character, Mary Richards, is tossing out all the baggage of her last life and starting anew in the newsroom of WJM-TV in Minneapolis. From the first episode, Moore plays Richards as young, polite and very determined 7. Here's her job interview with costar Ed Asner as the crotchety news director, Lou Grant.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW")

ED ASNER: (As Lou Grant) Look, miss, would you try answering the questions as I ask them?

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: (As Mary Richards) Yes, Mr. Grant, I will. But it does seem that you've been asking a lot of very personal questions that don't have a thing to do with my qualifications for this job.

ASNER: (As Lou Grant) You know what? You got spunk 8.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: (As Mary Richards) Well...

ASNER: (As Lou Grant) I hate spunk.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

ASNER: It was the most powerful moment in theater I've ever had because she played it so beautifully. The audience was going ooh-goo-goo (ph) at that moment.

BAKER: By the time she appeared in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" she was an experienced comedic actor and producer. Her production company, MTM Enterprises, was also responsible for sitcoms 9 including "Rhoda," "The Bob Newhart Show" and "WKRP In Cincinnati." But Moore had learned her craft while playing homemaker Laura Petrie for five seasons in the 1960s on "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW")

DICK VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) You're not - you're not going to fix me any breakfast, are you?

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) But darling, I offered to fix you breakfast.

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Well, all right, all right. Have your fun. Have fun. Enjoy yourself.

BAKER: Moore's chemistry with her onscreen husband, played by Dick Van Dyke, was so electric that CBS insisted her character had to be a single woman on her later show. CBS didn't want viewers to think they had divorced, and Dick Van Dyke cheerfully admitted this to NPR in 2011.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

VAN DYKE: Around the second season, we would try to rehearse and begin to giggle 10 for no reason. And a psychiatrist 11 said, you have a crush on each other. And (laughter) I realized that's true. And I think it showed on the screen.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

MOORE: Laura actually had opinions of her own. And while she was asserting herself, she also didn't make Dick Van Dyke look like a dummy 12. I mean, society's expectations at that point still said, hey, wait a minute, lady. You only go so far here. But I think we broke new ground.

BAKER: Broke new ground because Laura Petrie had opinions and she insisted on wearing capri pants in a time where skirts and heels were the height of TV fashion. Mary Tyler Moore proved she could wear what she wanted and also sometimes take the comic lead to Dick Van Dyke's straight man. Moore told Terry Gross she had always been a fan of the comedian 13 Nanette Fabray and channeled her to conjure 14 up those trademark 15 comic tears.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW")

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) And you said, don't do that. And you came down to breakfast in your yucky shirt. And...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

MOORE: There was definitely a cracking in the voice and an inability to maintain a tone and a certain amount of verbal yodeling that took place. And from that came, oh, Rob.

BAKER: Moore herself was not a single, free-wheeling Mary Richards embraced by America. The real Mary was married by the time she was 18. And off the set, her life was a lot darker than the TV characters she portrayed 16. She was born in Brooklyn but grew up in Los Angeles with a mother who battled alcoholism, a problem that later afflicted 17 Moore and both her siblings 18.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

MOORE: I probably never was really out-and-out drunk. And I certainly never drank during the day time. But I wasted a lot of my time, and I forgot a lot because I didn't remember much of what had happened the night before.

BAKER: Moore channeled some of that unhappiness in a role that earned her an Academy Award nomination 19 in 1980 as the icy grieving mother Beth Jarrett in "Ordinary People."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ORDINARY PEOPLE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I didn't think it was a...

MOORE: (As Beth Jarrett) Not to mention a violation 20 of privacy.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Whose privacy?

MOORE: (As Beth Jarrett) Our privacy. The family's privacy. I think it is a very private matter.

BAKER: To this day, however, it's her comedy that endures. In downtown Minneapolis, there's a statue of her as Mary Richards twirling her cap, a moment of hope and promise frozen in time. For NPR News, I'm Jesse Baker.

SIEGEL: Mary Tyler Moore died today after years of declining health. She was 80.