Posted on 01/25/2017 5:44:22 PM PST by doug from upland
Mary Tyler Moore was not what most people would call a conservative. But what may surprise many television fans mourning her passing at age 80 Wednesday is that the actress also didn’t consider herself a liberal.
In the 2013 PBS series “Pioneers of Television: Funny Ladies,” Moore explained that despite her TV character’s image on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” as a never-married working woman who became a feminist icon, she turned down Gloria Steinem’s invitation to join the feminist movement.
“I believed, and still do, that women have a very major role to play as mothers,” said Moore. “It’s very necessary for them to be with their children. That’s not what Gloria Steinem was saying. She was saying you can do everything and you owe it to yourself to have a career. I really didn’t believe that.”
As to electoral politics, Moore endorsed Jimmy Carter during his 1980 re-election campaign. But fast forward to 2008, when she says she would have done the same for Republican presidential nominee John McCain had he asked her to do so. (Memo to GOP: Missed opportunity.)
In an interview in 2009, Moore told Parade magazine, “When one looks at what’s happened to television, there are so few shows that interest me. I do watch a lot of Fox News. I like Charles Krauthammer and Bill O’Reilly.”
When asked if that meant she was a “right-winger,” Moore replied, “Maybe more of a libertarian centrist.”
Moore first found fame in the 1960s as homemaker Laura Petrie in “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” In her most famous role, as Mary Richards in the 1970s, she no doubt blazed a trail for women in America.
But, refreshingly, unlike so many actresses of her time, she wasn’t angry about it. And that’s one reason she will be remembered as the woman who could, and did, “turn the world on with her smile.”
RIP Mary
She was competent and good looking, therefore not qualified to join.
Loved that woman. “What do I get!? Pistachio nuts!”
She was beautiful and talented. She was special.
But, you know, being strong and accomplished wasn’t all that special. Many women managed to have that sort of life (not Hollywood success: ordinary success). Feminists act like they invented the concept of a career woman. No, it was an old concept. All the feminists manage to do was to make women angry at the world. And especially angry at men. Not something to be proud of.
RIP Mary.
He said: "If I knew that about Mary, I would have never been friends with her."
Genuine class, that Ed Asner.
RIP, MTM.
...because she had too much class.
Best description I’ve heard of her yet !
My favorite Dick Van Dyke Episode from 1963:
The Masterpiece
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiEPDA1v3vk
And I think Hollywood respected (or feared) her.
If she had ever turned on Hollywood, America would have listened ... just like what Trump did.
Asner is, and has always been, an @$$hole.
Loved him on MTM, then when I found out what a commie b****** he is, I can’t stand the guy
Hopefully he’s not too far behind and will headed in a different direction than Mary
Mary Tyler Moore looked enough like my mother to be her sister. It was actually a little strange to watch the MTM show for that reason, although I loved it and watched it every week.
Her personality and temperament, however, were completely different than my mother.
I've known what he is for a long, long time.
Mary Tyler Moore also suffered real heartache in her life, heartache that perhaps gave her perspective about life and motherhood that made her wary of embracing feminism publicly. MTM’s sister, Elizabeth, who was twenty years younger than MTM, died of either an accidental drug overdose or suicide when she (Elizabeth) was 21 years old and MTM was 35. Two years later, MTM’s son, Richard, who as 19, died when a gun he was cleaning accidentally went off and shot him in the head. Eight years after that, MTM’s only brother, John, died of cancer. That is a staggering amount of loss to endure.
What was MTM’s cause of death??
She was fantastic in Ordinary People.
Mary Tyler Moore Richard Diamond Private Detective 1950s.
Nicely said. Thank You.
I was in the Marines when the Dick Van Dyke show first started.
We had one little black and white TV in the barracks Rec Room.
No such thing as cable TV back then jut a couple of local channels.
Usually there was hardly anyone watching TV except for a favorite show or the news.
But the evening when the Dick Van Dyke Show came on everyone off duty crowded in to watch Mary.
She was the sweetheart of the Corps!
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