Mary Tyler Moore dies at 80

[rvwnsd]

Although I remember watching Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett, I have no recollection of watching Mary Tyler Moore. Maybe my family watched it, but I don't remember doing so. Still, I liked her in everything she did and am very sad that she passed away.

[+ BigRic]

while looking through YouTube for various Mary Tyler Moore clips I found this one not from her show but a funny moment

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPd77roTra4

 

Thanks very much for this, @mmk123.

 

It's like some awful Ludovico Technique, watching that video and then having Sean Spicer's image populate to the screen as a link to other currently popular clips right after the vid is over.

[Becket]

Chuckie the Clown. Best MTM ever. Top ten all time. Ordinary People. Really meaningful to me. Knew she was a great actress after that because I hated her character in the movie.

[+ BigRic]

"Happy!? . . . you tell me the definition of happy. But first you better make sure your kids are good and safe . . . that they haven't . . . drowned in that swimming pool you're so proud of! . . . Then you come and tell me how to be happy!"

[+ poolboy48220]

http://www.tvhistory.tv/1973_TV_Programs.JPG

Wow, that grid brings back memories. Including how innovative it was when that grid started showing up in the TV Guide, and how much easier it was to scan than the simple text format they used before then. I haven't used a printed TV guide for decades, but my father still lives by it.

 

Partridge Family was up against All in the Family? I don't remember that - my memories of watching Partridge Family must be on the little spare TV, because Dad wouldn't miss All in the Family.

[rvwnsd]

Wow, that grid brings back memories. Including how innovative it was when that grid started showing up in the TV Guide, and how much easier it was to scan than the simple text format they used before then. I haven't used a printed TV guide for decades, but my father still lives by it.

 

Partridge Family was up against All in the Family? I don't remember that - my memories of watching Partridge Family must be on the little spare TV, because Dad wouldn't miss All in the Family.

Thanks to that grid (thanks @azdr0710 ) I remembered why we never watched All in the Family - it was opposite Emergency!

[MikeBiDude]

Thanks to that grid (thanks @azdr0710 ) I remembered why we never watched All in the Family - it was opposite Emergency!

Randolph Mantooth, swoon.....

http://www.nndb.com/people/686/000024614/jsmirkbysquad.jpg

[maninsoma]

Wow, that grid brings back memories. Including how innovative it was when that grid started showing up in the TV Guide, and how much easier it was to scan than the simple text format they used before then. I haven't used a printed TV guide for decades, but my father still lives by it.

 

Partridge Family was up against All in the Family? I don't remember that - my memories of watching Partridge Family must be on the little spare TV, because Dad wouldn't miss All in the Family.

 

Partridge Family ran from 1970-1974, but only during its last season was it up against All In The Family. It was originally on Friday nights and was a highly rated show (top 20 overall and number one in its time slot), so I'm not sure why ABC decided to move it to Saturday to compete against what was then the number one show on TV. Maybe they were trying to kill off the show in the ratings because they knew David Cassidy was tired of the whole thing? Whatever the reason, the Partridges fell to the lower reaches of the rankings and was subsequently canceled.

[+ azdr0710]

Thanks to that grid (thanks @azdr0710 ) I remembered why we never watched All in the Family - it was opposite Emergency!

 

Same here. As a tiny kid, my bro and I watched "Emergency!" on the spare TV in our parents' room while they watched AITF on the big Zenith console in the family room. Loved hearing that three-tone alarm and then that woman's stern voice, "Squad 51......". Always hoped it'd be a really big fire.

[Phil_musc]

Thanks for the TV guide clip. That was one helluva Saturday night line-up. I remember staying in to watch that stuff with friends and then going out for Saturday night drinks, maybe getting lucky . . .

[s1conrad]

I liked Lucy but I loved Mary (and Rhoda, Phyllis, Sue-Ann, Ted, Lou and Gordie - the weather man).

My favorite episode was the Veal Prince Orloff segment; Mary is hosting an elegant dinner party, which Sue-Ann is catering--and she runs out of food. The entire ensemble is in the show (including a young Henry Winkler as Rhoda's date). It's priceless.

[+ sniper]

It always amazed me how many of her fantastic cohorts are still with us, all older than she was by 10 years or so: Dick Van Dyke, Betty White, Carl Reiner, Cloris Leechman, Ed Asner, Gavin MacLoud. Even Rose Marie and Nanette Fabray (who played her mother). Her long-time husband Grant Tinker just passed away a month or two ago, aged 90. She really was the baby of the group.

 

Well you have to remember she was diagnosed with diabetes in 1970. Given the time she got it, making it to 80 is like making it to 100. They now have technology like pumps to allow people much better control of their insulin levels, but by the time that came along, she likely already had significant damage from it.

 

But more amazing is Valerie Harper, who's had "months to live" from brain cancer for years now. Though she's apparently now really having some trouble herself.

[+ azdr0710]

I liked Lucy but I loved Mary (and Rhoda, Phyllis, Sue-Ann, Ted, Lou and Gordie - the weather man).

My favorite episode was the Veal Prince Orloff segment; Mary is hosting an elegant dinner party, which Sue-Ann is catering--and she runs out of food. The entire ensemble is in the show (including a young Henry Winkler as Rhoda's date). It's priceless.

 

unfortunately, the bottom of the screen seems to be a little bit cut off in this youtube

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnAKQdCofHA

[+ BigRic]

Randolph Mantooth, swoon.....

http://www.nndb.com/people/686/000024614/jsmirkbysquad.jpg

Yup! Heavy quotes "too skinny" for me now, but in another time? Like Kool & the Gang sings, "Emergency"!

 

Read the NYT obit and was surprised how little I knew of her personal adversities: the diabetes; the tragic deaths of her two siblings (including her brother dying of cancer after MTM unsuccessfully helped with a suicide attempt--jeebus!); her parents' alcoholism; her admission of her own alcohol issues developing while shooting Dick Van Dyke (Dick Van Dyke himself as well); and the tragic death of her only child (curious about any possible synchronicities, I looked up the dates of Richard Meeker Jr.'s death and the release of Ordinary People: Meeker died of a gunshot wound to the head one month after People opened in theaters). WTF, man.

[TruthBTold]

I saw a brief commentary on PBS news the day she died. They commented about how many breakthrough issues were brought up on the show in a matter of fact fashion. They mentioned that on one early episode she mentioned that she had a gay friend in a very off the cuff manner and then just kept on going. It was very different in fashion than All In The Family.

[+ azdr0710]

and, just for fun, the TV Guide for 1976:

 

http://www.tvhistory.tv/1976_TV_Programs.JPG

[+ WmClarke]

and, just for fun, the TV Guide for 1976:

 

http://www.tvhistory.tv/1976_TV_Programs.JPG

That Captain & Tennile lead-in to Monday Night Football--genius!!

[+ nycman]

Randolph Mantooth, swoon.....

http://www.nndb.com/people/686/000024614/jsmirkbysquad.jpg

 

One of those gorgeous bastards...that only got MORE handsome with age.....

 

[steed8]

while looking through YouTube for various Mary Tyler Moore clips I found this one not from her show but a funny moment

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPd77roTra4

 

 

That was really nice. Thank you!

[LADoug1]

Watched Barbara Walters interview MTM. Only a small bit of her difficult past was revealed.

[actor61]

Watched Barbara Walters interview MTM. Only a small bit of her difficult past was revealed.

MTM also made quite a few made-for-tv movies, including one in which she played an evil baby broker and won an Emmy. I also remember one called "First You Cry" in which she is married to a very unsympathetic Anthony Perkins who leaves her when she is diagnosed with breast cancer. She was very fine in that. Then, there was one with James Garner that was pretty good, and another in which she plays Bernadette Peters's therapist. Peters is terminally ill and Moore helps her cope. It seems she did a lot of those disease-of-the-week things. And there was a t.v. movie with Christine Lahti in which her husband dies and she discovers that Lahti was his mistress. And she played Mary Tood Lincoln with Sam Waterston as Abe and I remember being very impressed with that one too. I think it was on PBS that she did a production of "The Gin Game" with Dick Van Dyke in which the world reeled because she said "fuck" at the end of it. Her tap dancing in the elevator scene with Julie Andrews in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" is a hoot. In fact, her whole performance in that film is a hoot and I can't understand why Carol Channing was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in it when MTM gave a far more versatile and superior performance. "Change of Habit" was dreadful but she maintains her dignity. I loved "Flirting with Disaster" and gasped with delight in the scene where she fellates George Segal. But the film didn't do well and few people saw it. She's superb in "Ordinary People" and I think if they'd put her in the Supporting category rather than Best, she'd have won. Timothy Hutton won for Supporting in that film when his role was clearly the lead. I have a lot of trouble understanding the Academy Award nominations. This year, Dev Patel is up for Supporting when the movie revolves around his story, so shouldn't he be on the Best list? It's all redundant, though, because Casey Affleck has it sewn up.

 

I never liked Lucy and had an up and down relationship with Carol Burnett but MTM made me laugh consistently. Lucy and Carol were just too over-the-top for me, and I found the friendship between Mary and Rhoda much more realistic and funnier than Lucy's with Ethel. I know, I know - different shows, different styles - but Lucy always got herself into unbelievable predicaments and Mary always got herself into believable predicaments. That's what made her so relateable. And she was supported by genius writing both in The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore show. That helps enormously.

 

I wrote about this in another forum, but last night's tribute to MTM hosted by Gayle King was a travesty. The first 30 minutes were spent listening to that windbag Oprah Winfrey gassing on about Tyler Moore, whom she had only met a couple of times in her life. The conversation basically became about how brilliant Oprah was because she had watched Mary on Saturday nights in the 1970s while she conditioned her hair. I need Oprah Winfrey and Kellyanne Conway to buy a house together on an island far, far away from the rest of us so we never have to hear their voices again.

[Becket]

Starsky and Hutch. Watching that show always made me feel funny "down there."

[kewtex]

I liked Lucy but I loved Mary (and Rhoda, Phyllis, Sue-Ann, Ted, Lou and Gordie - the weather man).

My favorite episode was the Veal Prince Orloff segment; Mary is hosting an elegant dinner party, which Sue-Ann is catering--and she runs out of food. The entire ensemble is in the show (including a young Henry Winkler as Rhoda's date). It's priceless.

 

Sue Ann Nivens: Mary, dear - do you have any idea what happens when you let Veal Prince Orloff sit in an oven too long?

 

Mary Richards: No, what?

 

Sue Ann Nivens: He dies.

[+ WilliamM]

I never liked Lucy and had an up and down relationship with Carol Burnett but MTM made me laugh consistently. Lucy and Carol were just too over-the-top for me, and I found the friendship between Mary and Rhoda much more realistic and funnier than Lucy's with Ethel.

 

Lucille Ball was gifted with superior physical comedy skills. Still, she apparently practiced over and over again to make sure it was right. "I Love Lucy" is still around in reruns because people of all ages and most countries can appreciate her comic ability.

[+ azdr0710]

people of all ages and all counties can appreciate her comic ability.

 

now, William??.....was that an intentional bit of comedy??!!