Mary Tyler Moore, who played the spunky housewife on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” in the 1960s and an idealistic career woman on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in the 1970s, was an actress of dynamic range and accomplishment. She won a 1980 Tony Award for playing a quadriplegic sculptor in “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” and an Emmy for her role as a villainous orphanage director in the TV production “Stolen Babies” (1993). She was nominated for an Oscar as the frosty matriarch in “Ordinary People” (1980), Robert Redford’s directorial debut.

The Monument Square tribute got national attention Thursday night at the beginning of a CBS News special commemorating Moore’s life, and the show included a shoutout to Portland from Oprah Winfrey.

Moore’s production company, MTM Enterprises, created groundbreaking TV shows during the 1970s and 1980s, including “Hill Street Blues” and “St. Elsewhere.” But she was primarily considered one of television’s finest comic actresses because of her roles on two of the most popular sitcoms of all time.

She received two Emmy Awards for her role as Laura Petrie, the comely and slightly scatterbrained wife of a TV comedy writer, on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which aired on CBS from 1961 to 1966. Moore, sporting capri pants and a Jackie Kennedy bouffant, held her own against veteran entertainers such as Van Dyke (as her husband), Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie. Moore said she always thought of herself as “a new kind of comedian — the funny straight woman.”

TV and film actress Mary Tyler Moore dies at 80

— Associated Press

 


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