Mary Tyler Moore

Mary Tyler Moore (1936-2017) always knew she'd have a career on stage, "I knew at a very early age what I wanted to do. Some people refer to it as indulging in my instincts and artistic bent. I call it just showing off, which was what I did from about three years of age on." In her two-hour interview, Mary Tyler Moore discusses growing up in Brooklyn before moving with her family to Los Angeles. She chronicles her first TV job, as "Happy Hotpoint" on commercials for the sponsor of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which she began right after graduating high school, and discusses her time as a chorus dancer before choosing to pursue acting. She talks about playing the unseen "Sam" on Richard Diamond, Private Detective, which was when her career began to take off. Moore next describes turning to comedy when Carl Reiner cast her as "Laura Petrie" in The Dick Van Dyke Show. She discusses that show, as well as meeting her future husband Grant Tinker on the set. She then talks about her next series, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the first of many series produced by MTM Productions. She speaks of her later series and her acclaimed work in the film Ordinary People, and on stage in Whose Life is it Anyway?. Diane Werts conducted the interview on October 23, 1997 in New York, NY.