Being Mary Tyler Moore

Greetings again from the darkness. It's borderline unfathomable that someone who has worked for almost 20 years as a cinematographer and a decade as a TV director could be "unfamiliar" with the work and career of one of the industry giants, yet that's the claim of director James Adolphus ("Soul of a Nation" mini-series) when it comes to Mary Tyler Moore. His film does play a bit as if he's opening a Christmas present that everyone else in the room knows what's under the wrapping, and it's because of this, the film works as not just a retrospective of her career, but also a tribute to a woman who influenced so many.

"The Dick Van Dyke Show" ran for 158 episodes between 1961 and 1966, and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" ran for 168 episodes between 1970 and 1977. These were two immensely popular shows during their respective eras, and because of her characters in each, Mary Tyler Moore spent time as both America's favorite wife and America's favorite single woman. These characters were cutting edge (for different reasons) for their time. Director Adolphus also provides insight into her childhood and early career. Mary was first married in 1954, not long after high school graduation. She found work as 'Happy Hotpoint', the dancer on Hotpoint advertisements, and clips of the ads are included here. Even after she became a world-famous actor, she remained a dancer at heart.

Betty Friedan and "The Feminine Mystique" are referenced a few times, and the point is made, even if it's in a subtle manner, that Mary's impact on feminism has long been overlooked. We hear from such industry folks as Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Asner, James L Brooks, and Treva Silverman, as well as friends and family, but it's really Mary herself that we see on screen for the vast majority of the two-hour run time. In particular, a loose structure is formed from clips of her appearances on "The David Susskind Show" and an interview with Rona Barrett. These segments allow for some rare personal insight into Mary Tyler Moore as a person.

So many rare pictures, clips, and home movies are included that we easily follow a career that spanned 50 years ... and three marriages. The first marriage produced her only child. The second marriage, to Grant Tinker, resulted in MTM Productions and her greatest professional success. However, it was the third marriage to Dr. Robert Levine, where she found true and long-lasting love, as well as the motivation to find herself with a stint at the Betty Ford Clinic for rehab in 1984. We learn of her Broadway redemption with "Whose Life is it, anyway?", after her setback on stage many years earlier with a musical "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Probably the most surprising segment here revolves around the original pilot for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" ... it has great video and behind-the- scenes scoop.

Given her comedic chops displayed in her two most famous sitcoms, many of us were caught off guard with her Oscar nominated performance in Robert Redford's ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980). What we discover here is that Mary's personal life was nearly as rosy as Laura Petrie's or Mary Richards', and many real-life personal losses allowed her to reveal a bit more of her true self on screen. Most of us know that Mary was the female lead in Elvis Presley's final feature film, CHANGE OF HABIT (1969), but we might not have known that Carl Reiner was her comedy hero, or that her own struggles with diabetes (over decades) led her to become International Chairperson of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). For one who seemed to constantly define the contemporary woman, Mary Tyler Moore's story is impressive, and her personal archives bring more meaning to "Love is All Around."

Beginning May 26, 2023, the documentary will air on HBO and stream on MAX.

I was one of those kids who never missed a Mary Tyler Moore show on Saturday nights. Beautiful, kind, humble, understanding, and willing to stand up for her values; watching the character Mary Richard's played by MTM was like watching life lessons on how to grow up and be a good person. And those were tough years. Society was in turmoil: Vietnam, Watergate, Civil rights, etc. Yet even as a kid I knew that show was gently, through humor, helping us deal with complexity.

That same dualism was part of who MTM was as a human being, as the documentary points out, particularly in a condescending Suskind interview that she handles beautifully. But it misses a great deal too. Her shows were not just funny, they were important milestones culturally. They were part of an era; they helped define that era. The 70s show became a huge hit, won tons of Tonys, and spun off so many shows it seemed at the time like MTM Enterprises had replaced MGM - they even spoofed the studio with a tiny cat instead of a Lion. Her impact was huge. But you don't really get a feel for that impact from this doc.

For instance, instead of spending way too much time on her last husband, which gets creepy and weird (like someone is trying really hard to prove something - he's a producer), more important to her legacy would have been more depth about her company, how those shows spun off, and her relationship with husband Grant Tinker, which is glossed over. (Jealousy?) Tinker was a huge TV influence, first through his wife then on his own. He deserved more in the doc.

Oddly enough, so did MTM. We endure overly long clips from the same interviewers, and too many voiceovers from celebrity fans. Better would have been in-depth clips from her career, especially her films, more analysis of her impact on television from the experts (not just friends), more background from Van Dyke, and more context about other iconic shows at that time: All In The Family, Rhoda, Maud, Sanford and Son, and the Jeffersons. And it would have been perfect to end, not with the last husband ad nauseum (2 appearances are sufficient, not dozens), but with that wonderful reunion of MTM, Betty, and Valerie on 'Hot in Cleveland,' her last scripted performance. It was a beautiful TV moment, like all of her work. The doc director treated his subject far too superficially.

A recent HBO documentary on the ultimate woman of television. Using archival footage & audio interviews, we learn of Moore, who was a dancer, who made her way to Hollywood in bit parts & who all but decided to quit the game, after a long series of rejections, before she got her seminal berth alongside Dick Van Dyke on the Dick Van Dyke show in the 1960's which showed her to be more than just a pretty face who had excellent comic timing but also became the nascent face of feminism by her insistence to wear things most women in the world wore already, like pants, became revolutionary which was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg when the Mary Tyler Moore show launched in the next decade. In that incarnation, Moore became the clarion call for all independent working women out in the world as Mary Richards was the poster child for the women's movement navigating her life at a TV studio & standing up to the men in charge. Although her home life wasn't ideal (her son passed from a gun accident, her first 2 marriages went by the wayside & she accepted the fact much like her mother she was an alcoholic) she managed to get an Oscar nom for her turn in 1980's Ordinary People & racked up acclaim for a performance in the stage version of Whose Life is It Anyway? In her later years she found, in her own words, the love of her life, a doctor, marrying him who was by her side as she suffered from diabetes. HBO must've known something was in the air since this aired a few weeks after their Donna Summer doc, coupled w/the news that icon, Tina Turner, also passed (& who has a HBO doc of her own from a few years ago), making this viewing a must see but also bittersweet since in some ways a friend of the family & the world at large had gone into the great beyond.

To say that iconic actress/dancer/comedienne Mary Tyler Moore was a gifted, complicated, reserved, often-misunderstood individual is indeed an understatement. However, director James Adolphus's new HBO documentary presents a reverent, insightful and respectfully candid biography of the famed star of TV, stage and screen, showing Moore in all of her magnificent multidimensionality. As the winner of seven Emmys, three Golden Globes, a special Tony Award and the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as an Oscar nomination for her tremendous lead performance in "Ordinary People" (1980), she significantly changed the face of television comedy and demonstrated a degree of acting versatility rarely seen. In her TV roles as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show and Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, she opened doors for actresses by portraying characters who hadn't been seen on the little screen before. And, in a wider sense, in her role as Mary Richards, she significantly bolstered the growth of the women's movement in the world at large, a role she championed despite her own somewhat conventional off-screen lifestyle, a way of life for which she was often criticized by feminists. However, Moore's personal life often ran counter to the perky, cheerful on-screen persona she routinely projected, and she rarely spoke openly about the many challenges she faced - a sometimes-troubled relationship with her parents, two divorces, the loss of her only son in a gun shot accident, the untimely deaths of her two younger siblings, alcohol abuse and coping with complications from type 1 diabetes. As she aged, however, the fighter within her found ways to work through the anguish, such as choosing projects that enabled her to purge her pain, receiving treatment at the Betty Ford Clinic, becoming an advocate for her favorite causes and finding true love in a third marriage. The filmmaker tells Moore's complex, moving and inspiring story with an array of clips from her work, archive interview footage with renowned journalists and celebrities, and ample voiceover observations from those who knew her and admired her work. The narrative is admittedly somewhat straightforward and formulaic, but it presents an excellent composite of images and insights into the life and work of a legend, one that's bound to cause her to be seen in a new light and could well introduce her to a new generation of fans who may not have previously been aware of her many accomplishments. Take a bow, Mary.

A fine bio/doc of, in my opinion, the best sit com actress of the twentieth century, and a damn fine dramatic actor as well. I especially admired how director James Adolphus avoided the Talking Head Trap by having voices over clips rather than cutting away from clips to shots of talking heads talking, as most docs do. Bravo. Also, I found the voices generally well chosen, mostly interested in imparting info and perceptions about Ms. Moore rather than pushing themselves. Again, I would credit the fact that the speakers were not shown on camera for this felicitousness.

As for the tone of this documentary, it's fairly doleful, wouldn't you say? Certainly, Ms. Moore's life had its share of sadnesses, what with a cold fish dad, possibly suicidal sister and son, and alcoholic brother. But there is a core of melancholy present in all her interviews, even at their most comic. Maybe all professional funny folks are subject to this trait, but it sure is present in this gal.

My only criticism is that there is too much time spent on act three (Moore's long decline after she moved to upstate NY) and not enough on act one (her early life with her parents, and first marriage). Act two, however, cannot be improved on, especially the treatment of The Mary Tyler Moore Show's influence on American popular culture in the 70s and even more especially that culture's changing views on women and the workplace. Let's just say that this doc effectively eviscerates Gloria Steinem's monumentally dumb remark that TMTMS was "anti woman". Give it an A minus.

PS...Forgot what a pompous bore David Susskind was.