Mary Tyler Moore’s Life Through Rare Vintage Photos

Mary Tyler Moore was born in Brooklyn in 1936 and had dreamt of stardom since she was a small child. In 1997, the actress told the Archive of American Television, “I knew at a very early age what I wanted to do.”

She continued, “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.” Clearly, the practice paid off!

Mary Tyler Moore grew up in an Irish-Catholic family and lived with them in Brooklyn. The actress’s father was a clerk, and her mother worked in the home. Mary was the eldest of three children, with a younger brother named John, and a younger sister named Elizabeth.

Eventually, the family moved from Brooklyn to a rented apartment in Queens. Years later, after spending time working outside of the city, the actress returned to live in The Big Apple.

When she was only eight years old, Mary Tyler Moore’s family moved to Los Angeles. Moore had been raised Catholic and attended a Catholic school when the family was living in Brooklyn. After the move, the future actress enrolled in Saint Ambrose School in Los Angeles.

Moore’s mother Marjory is quoted in According to The Real Mary Tyler Moore by Chris Bryars, saying that Mary was “a pain in the neck to raise.” This is because she always wanted to dance and act.

Here we have a yearbook photo of Mary Tyler Moore’s from 1955. It was taken during her time at Immaculate Heart High School — a private Catholic prep school in L.A. Alongside this sweet image of Moore were the words, “The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms.”

When she returned to the school to celebrate its centennial in 2006, Moore commented, “I wanted to be a dancer — despite the cautions of Mother Eucharia [then IH principal] against my wearing short skirts in the school’s musical comedies.”

Mary Tyler Moore was married three times in her life, first to Richard Carleton Meeker. The pair tied the knot straight after Moore’s graduation from high school — she was just 18 years old and he, 10 years her senior, was 28 years old. After Meeker had served in World War II and the Korean War, he went on to have a career in management.

Looking back, Moore admitted that she left “the complicated but protective, even totalitarian, environment of my parents’ unstable home for the adventure of ‘wifedom’ and motherhood.”

From the time that she was a young child, Mary Tyler Moore wanted to be a dancer and decided to pursue it when she was still only 17 years old. In 1955, Moore landed the part of Happy Hotpoint, a dancing elf that advertised Hotpoint Appliances in a series of TV commercials. The dishwasher advertisement aired during a commercial break from The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet.

Incredibly, Moore appeared in 39 Hotpoint commercials in five days, earning $6000 for her efforts. Eventually, she stopped because she became pregnant.

Following her role as the dancing Hotpoint elf, Mary Tyler Moore got her first regular television role. She was cast as the mysterious and stylish receptionist for Private Detective Richard Diamond. Of course, TV in the late 1950s was very different than it is now, and Moore’s face never actually appeared onscreen.

Rather, audiences could hear her voice and see her legs, giving her character an aura of mystery. Moore was featured in seven episodes of the show, which aired in 1959.

At the tender age of 23, Mary Tyler Moore auditioned to play the wife of a comedy writer in The Dick Van Dyke Show. At this point, Moore had racked up several TV credits but was still worried that she’d be considered too young for the part. She decided to tell a little white lie, informing producers that she was actually 25.

This was probably a good decision to make because Dick Van Dyke was in his mid-30s and didn’t want too big of an age gap.

Mary Tyler Moore was cast as wife Laura Petrie in 1961, starting her journey as a TV icon. Moore’s character was initially intended as the straight person to the other characters, but creator Carl Reiner noticed her comedic talents.

Reflecting on the show, Moore told PBS, “Carl started writing for me in such a way that I could still feed Dick straight lines but I could also get a laugh.” This picture is taken on the set of the show.

The Dick Van Dyke Show ran for five years, between 1961 and 1966. The show aired weekly and ultimately turned Mary Tyler Moore into an international star. Her character was known for her chic capri pants, as well as her ability to charm audiences and co-stars alike.

Dick Van Dyke remembers, “My first question was, ‘Can this girl do comedy?’ After that, I said, ‘She’s a little young for me.’ I got to be on hand and watch her grow into the talent she became. She was just the best.”

Here we have The Dick Van Dyke Show stars Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore smiling together with their 1964 Emmy Awards for Best Actor and Best Actress. Moore would go on to win many more awards throughout her illustrious career, but thought that this one would be her last.

When she picked up this award in the mid-’60s, the actress commented, “I know this will never happen again.” Well, how wrong she would turn out to be!

Mary Tyler Moore had one son, Richie Meeker, with her first husband. Richie was born six weeks after his parents tied the knot in 1956, but the couple sadly parted ways in 1961.

Moore’s second husband was advertising executive Grant Tinker, who she married in 1962. Eventually, Moore and Tinker would become a significant Hollywood power couple thanks to their production company. Prior to meeting Moore, Tinker was the head of West Coast programming at NBC.

During the course of her career, Mary Tyler Moore appeared in a number of Broadway plays. Some were more successful than others. For example, in 1966, Moore originated the role of Holly Golightly in a new musical version of Truman Capote’s novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Unfortunately, the show was a flop that closed before even making it to Broadway. Critics reviewed performances in Philadelphia and Boston and were extremely harsh about Moore’s singing, supposedly because she was suffering from bronchial pneumonia.

In 1967, following her successful stint on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore appeared in the hit film — Thoroughly Modern Millie. The movie was a musical rom-com that followed Julie Andrews as a flighty flapper that got into various hijinks as she attempted to marry her wealthy boss.

Moore starred alongside Andrews and Carol Channing, who can be seen here in this photograph of the supporting actresses at the film’s premiere. Reviews for the film were generally positive.

Mary Tyler Moore was a fashionista throughout her life and played a huge part in shaping what women wore. In her role as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore wore her famous capri pants, which was very unusual at the time. Women on TV in this era were rarely shown wearing trousers, so Moore was the shining example of a modern woman.

In this picture, she’s wearing a chic ‘60s checkered coat with knee-high boots, bangs, and an oversized collar. We approve!

Mary Tyler Moore had several small movie parts before hitting it big. She played a nurse in a Jack Lemmon comedy in 1957, and was in an aviation drama in 1961. Of course, once she was more known to the public, bigger roles followed.

After Thoroughly Modern Millie in 1967, Tyler Moore starred in two comedies in 1968, and then landed a role opposite Elvis Presley in 1969. Moore played a nun in the crime musical, Change of Habit. These pictures were captured between takes.

As is often the case, life behind the scenes wasn’t perfect for Mary Tyler Moore. The star battled addiction issues, and later remarked that “[my dependence] started building when I was in my late teens and became my strength during the years I was on The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Both of Moore’s parents had also suffered from addiction issues, and the actress thinks her illness affected her second marriage, as well as the beginning of her third. Eventually, Moore checked herself into rehab.

In 1969, CBS aired a special one-hour episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show called Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman. The show was a musical variety special, featuring the pair performing skits and songs. At one point in the episode, Moore does a song and dance salute that celebrates suffragettes, flappers, Rosie the Riveter, and the modern woman.

Based on this episode, Moore and husband Grant Tinker successfully pitched the half-hour sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show ran between 1970 and 1977, and featured the actress as an unmarried career woman working as an associate producer. The show was phenomenally successful, as it featured realistic and complex characters and storylines. This was unusual for broadcast television at the time, and the show went on to win a whopping 29 Emmy Awards.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show became so popular that it birthed three spin-offs based on characters from the show. It also inspired Friends and 30 Rock.

Because Mary Tyler Moore played a modern woman on both of her successful TV shows, the actress became associated with the Women’s Movement. Moore’s character was an independent working woman with career aspirations and a stylish fashion-forward wardrobe. She wasn’t the traditional mother and wife seen on TV.

In this era, it was still very rare to have a female TV character that didn’t depend on a man. Because of this, The Mary Tyler Moore Show was considered groundbreaking.

Because of the success of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, TV has forever changed for the better. We now take it for granted that we see women on television that occupy various different roles. We don’t only see women that are defined by their relationships to male characters.

The show performed well for six seasons before taking a fall in rankings. The producers wished to stop in order to protect the show’s legacy. However, in its final year, it still won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy.

Throughout its run, The Mary Tyler Moore Show won 29 Emmys, which gave it the record until Frasier knocked it off the top spot in 2002. After the show’s last episode, Esquire wrote that Mary Tyler Moore was “America’s Sweetheart,” and others joined in with praise.

Dick Van Dyke said, “She’s the best comedienne in the U.S. today. She’s so darn good that nonpros don’t notice it, but those of us in the business love to watch her.”

Indeed, Mary Tyler Moore proved herself more than worthy of praise and admiration. The actress won two Emmys for her work on The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1964 and 1966, and then won four more for her performance in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The actress also scooped up two Golden Globe Awards for her TV work, and later won several awards for her work in film and theater. Moore held the record for the most leading actress Emmys until she was later overtaken by Julia Louis Dreyfus.

Sadly, Mary Tyler Moore had a troubled relationship with her only child, son Richie. The actress admitted that she wasn’t a good role model for her son and felt that she let him down. Here she is pictured with Richie and second husband Grant Tinker.

In her memoir, the actress remembered, “I demanded a lot of Richie. I was responsible for a lot of alienation. There is no question about it. By the time Richie was five, I had already let him down.”

In 1969, Mary Tyler Moore and her second husband, Grant Tinker, founded MTM Enterprises. With their company, the couple produced The Mary Tyler Moore Show, alongside its spin-offs and several other shows. The company’s logo was an homage to MGM, featuring a kitten instead of a lion.

MTM also produced The Bob Newhart Show, Hill Street Blues, and Remington Steele. For years, MTM co-owned the CBS Studio Center with CBS. Eventually, the company was sold.

Although Mary Tyler Moore’s first Broadway experience hadn’t gone well, she returned to the stage following the end of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Indeed, after the show wrapped, the actress divorced her husband and left Hollywood for New York.

In 1980, Tyler Moore starred as Claire in a gender-swapped version of Whose Life Is it Anyway?, which ran for 96 performances. Her next play — Sweet Sue — opened in 1987 and ran for 164 performances.

When Mary Tyler Moore starred in 1980’s Ordinary People, she was playing a role very different from her usual characters. The actress played a grieving mother in Robert Redford’s directorial debut, starring alongside Donald Sutherland and Judd Hirsch.

The film was nominated for six Academy Awards altogether, including a nomination for Mary Tyler Moore. Ultimately, Ordinary People won four, including Best Picture and Best Director. Prior to Ordinary People, Moore hadn’t appeared in a movie for 11 years.

Sadly, art imitated life for Tyler Moore when her only son Richie tragically passed away in 1980. The mother and son had been estranged for some years, and when Richie got back in touch, he was already having problems and struggling with addiction.

Richie was 24 when he died, following a tragic accident. The actress’s son was a gun collector and was handling a small shotgun when it went off, and ultimately killed him. The model was later taken off the market.

Unfortunately, Richie’s passing wasn’t the first family tragedy that Mary Tyler Moore had experienced. Just two months prior, the actress’s younger sister passed away due to a combination of substances. Years later, Moore’s brother John passed away aged 47 due to kidney cancer. This left her as the only remaining sibling.

Moore would continue to face adversity through her life. She was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1969, and had surgery for a benign brain tumor in 2011.

In 1982, Mary Tyler Moore and her mother went on a trip to the Vatican, where they had a personal audience with Pope John Paul II. Upon their return, Moore’s elderly mother came down with bronchitis, and they called a doctor for a house call.

When Dr. Robert Levine showed up, he told Mary to get in touch with him if there was an emergency. The actress responded, “Does acute loneliness count?” The couple was married the following year.

Later in life, Mary Tyler Moore spoke to Rolling Stone about learning to find balance — “You know what I’m working on? I’m working on learning to, in an overused phrase, live with myself. Learning to like myself. To know that it’s all right to be alone, to do nothing if I feel like it, to allow myself just to sit and stare into space if that’s what I choose to do.”

She continued, “There’s been a lot of hard thinking and soul-searching.”

Mary Tyler Moore published two memoirs during her life. The first, After All, was published in 1995 and was forthcoming about the actress’s struggles with addiction throughout her life. She revealed that her illness intensified after her divorce from Grant Tinker, and that she was self-medicating due to her stressful life.

Moore wrote, “Even though I was accomplishing things by myself, it was all so uncomfortable that I anesthetized myself at the end of the day.”

In her memoir, After All, Mary Tyler Moore admitted that she felt pressure to live up to the perfect image of her character, Mary Richards. She explained that being linked to the character was like “growing up with a mother who is a very famous actress.”

She explained, “There are all kinds of wonderful perks that go with it, and then there are little resentments, too. My life is inextricably intertwined with Mary Richards,’ and probably always will be.”

Throughout her life, Mary Tyler Moore was an avid animal lover. In this sweet picture, the actress is seen cuddling a gorilla at the Los Angeles Zoo in 1974. Moore had four dogs of her own and teamed up with fellow actress Bernadette Peters to found Broadway Barks, an adoption event.

Moore explained, “We need more awareness that there are no-kill shelters that will take animals in and try to instill [the animals] with the same kind of affection and love that we recognize as people.”

When she was only 33 years old, Mary Tyler Moore was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She said, “Back then, nobody really knew what diabetes was… My concern about talking about it was that it would be distracting for an audience.”

Moore would go on to serve as the international chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation for over 20 years. The actress explained, “I also realized that if I did speak out, I might be able to help others better cope and manage their diabetes.”

Mary Tyler Moore’s second memoir, Growing Up Again: Life, Loves, and Oh Yeah, Diabetes dealt with her illness in more detail. In the book, she admitted that the disease permanently affected her vision, balance, and stamina.

At an appearance in 2009, Moore said, “I wasn’t sure I wanted the world to know that behind the smile that could turn it on was an independent woman who was dependent on multiple shots of insulin a day, just to stay alive.”

In Growing Up Again, Mary Tyler Moore spends time reflecting on the tragic loss of her son, Richie. She wrote, “Time is a great healer […] It came from out of nowhere. He was doing so well.”

In the book, the actress says, “If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t have pursued a career while I had a little boy to care for. My heart breaks when I think of the times missed, times with him.”

In this vintage snap from 1973, we can see Mary Tyler Moore, second husband Grant Tinker, Minnesota Governor Wendell Anderson, and his family. The Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce awarded the cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show for bringing such positive attention to Minneapolis.

The show was based in the city, where Mary Richards moved from her small town, and famously tossed her hat in the sky. The show wasn’t filmed in Minneapolis, but many establishing shots were taken in the city.

Despite the struggles and tragedies Mary Tyler Moore faced in her life, she made a huge impact on television for women. Back in 1970, she was a female lead character who took care of herself, had a successful career, and was unmarried. Furthermore, episodes of the show dealt with women’s rights issues — such as the equal pay gap and balancing a career with home life.

Moore also inspired numerous fashionistas in the 1970s, who admired her chic working ensembles.

In 2012, Mary Tyler Moore received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award for her long career in TV and movies. Adorably, the award was presented to the actress by her former costar, an 89-year-old Dick Van Dyke.

Before presenting the award, the Mary Poppins actor remarked, “I love that woman. I know everyone loves her, but I mean, I’m serious about it. I saw her first.” Indeed, it is rumored that the pair had a relationship while filming The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Towards the end of her life, and when she was nearly blind from diabetes, Mary Tyler Moore made her last televised appearance. In 2013, the actress was reunited with her former costars from The Mary Tyler Moore Show on sitcom Hot in Cleveland. The actress joined Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, Betty White, and Georgia Engel.

On Katie, journalist Katie Couric interviewed the cast members, who were reuniting for the first time in over 30 years. This would mark the group’s last time onscreen together.

As an animal lover, Mary Tyler Moore identified as a vegetarian. However, upon looking at her diet, the actress is better defined as a pescatarian, as she ate fish. As well as setting up Broadway Barks – an adoption event – the actress was an animal rights activist.

In particular, Moore supported the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and advocated for compassionate treatment of farm animals. In this picture, she attends the Lion Country Safari Press Conference in 1971.

Mary Tyler Moore’s father, George Tyler Moore, was a lifelong American Civil War enthusiast. To honor him, the actress purchased a historic structure in Shepherdstown, West Virginia to be used as a center for Civil War Studies as part of Shepherd College (now University). The center was named after him — the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War.

The center resides in the historic Conrad Shindler House. As it turns out, Mary Tyler Moore is a descendent of Revolutionary War veteran Conrad Shindler.

Mary Tyler Moore had a long life, passing away at the age of 80 in 2016. A statement from her representative reported that the actress was in the hospital, surrounded by her friends and husband of over 30 years, Robert Levine. Moore had lived with diabetes, and underwent brain surgery in 2011.

She also suffered from heart and kidney problems in her old age, and was almost blind due to diabetes. Tributes poured in as a response to her passing.

In 2002, years before Mary Tyler Moore’s passing, television network TV Land dedicated a statue in Minneapolis to Moore’s character, Mary Richards. The statue portrays the iconic moment from the show’s opening, where Mary triumphantly throws her hat in the air.

Of course, the city has also hosted the Mary Tyler Moore tour since the ‘90s, which visits six sites around the city. One thing’s for sure — even for those that don’t know her name, Mary Tyler Moore changed television for everyone.