Mary Tyler Moore’s tragedies and triumphs revealed in HBO documentary
nypost.comDr. Robert Levine, in 1983, where her former “TMTMS” co-star Betty White steals the show. Friends and colleagues, including Ed Asner, Beverly Sanders, Norman Lear, James Brooks and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” writer Susan Silver help narrate the jigsaw puzzle of Moore’s life via off-camera interviews — some recent, some archival — leaving the documentary to laser-focus on Moore, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 80.“I learned so much about her — even the look on her face when Rona Barrett was interviewing her [for a TV show] and the way her face subtly reacted to things,” Silver told The Post. “It was amazing.“She was very private and very friendly, always, but wasn’t very open,” she said. “I was close to [‘TMTMS’ co-stars] Valerie [Harper] and Ed …but Mary was very closed off … and now [after watching ‘Being Mary Tyler Moore’] I understand why. “I had no idea then [since] she was very lovely and nice and had a warm smile.”A chunk of the documentary covers Moore’s segue from her Emmy-winning turn as suburban housewife Laura Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (1961-66) to her iconic role as single career woman Mary Richards on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (1970-77), for which Moore snared four Emmys (and four nominations).
The series premiered on CBS in tandem with the rise of the women’s liberation movement; Moore is described in “Being Mary Tyler Moore” as “a feminine feminist,” happy to publicly support the cause yet leading a different life in private with husband Grant Tinker, who ran their joint production company (they were married from 1962 to 1981).“That wasn’t her life,” Silver said of Moore’s Mary Richards onscreen persona. “She wasn’t that into feminism.
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