Mary Tyler Moore, who turned the world on with her smile. on her classic 1970s TV sitcom, died seven years ago.
The book, MARY: THE MARY TYLER MOORE STORY, presents an objective, detailed telling of the performer’s life and career before, during, and beyond her two benchmark classic TV series, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
In her later years, the multi-award-winning performer, who suffered from diabetes, was shaped not only by the ravages of that devastating disease, but by various physical, psychological, and professional challenges, as well as the more uplifting experiences of her involvement with numerous charitable works such as animal rights and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
MARY: THE MARY TYLER MOORE STORY narrates it all, telling the enticing, adventurous, very personal, very human, and now very accessible tale of Moore’s remarkable life and career.
Not only was Mary a gifted actor, a dancer, a singer, and an unselfish philanthropist, but she also had a solid business sense that she utilized to establish herself as one of the most successful individuals in the entertainment industry. But more than anything, she was an unselfish human being.
Although Moore relayed as much as she could about her life in her two memoirs, MARY: THE MARY TYLER MOORE STORY takes it all many steps further, as it delineates like no other publication before regarding her issues with alcoholism, diabetes, plastic surgery, childhood sexual abuse; her near-obsessive love for animals; her troubled personal relationships with her parents, and her first husband, Richard Meeker; the tragic deaths of her son, her brother, and her sister; her personal and professional challenges with her second husband and business partner TV executive Grant Tinker, as well as a few of her co-stars like Rose Marie (from The Dick Van Dyke Show), playwright Neil Simon, as well as her professional failures on Broadway, the big screen, and television.
In covering the gamut of Moore’s personal and professional existence, MARY: THE MARY TYLER MOORE STORY features all-new commentary culled from exclusive interviews with several of her co-stars over the years including Mary Tyler Moore Show actors Ed Asner, Gavin MacLeod, Joyce Bulifant; as well as Larry Matthews (little Ritchie Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show), Carol Channing (Mary’s co-star from the 1967 movie Thoroughly Modern Millie), Stanley Livingston (a co-star from Mary’s first movie X-15 in 1960), actress Karen Sharpe Kramer (Mary’s co-star on several early TV-appearances), as well as MTM insiders like Matthew Asner (son of Ed Asner), who grew up on the set of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and went on to co-produce and co-direct the DVD release and it’s included documentary of that series.
Rare recollections are also provided by renowned television journalist Betty Rollin, who overcame breast cancer (and who Mary portrayed in the ground-breaking 1978 TV-biopic, First You Cry (based on Rollin’s best-selling memoir of the same name); writer/producers who worked with Mary on numerous of her television productions over the years including Treva Silverman, Sam Bobrick, Arnold Kogen, and Bill Persky, the latter of whom became one of Mary’s closest friends.
Additional preferential memories are shared by some of Hollywood’s top entertainment journalists like Rick Lertzman, who reveals never-heard memories from his conversations with Grant Tinker and Rose Marie.
In all, MARY: THE MARY TYLER MOORE STORY is a loyal tribute to the beloved star.
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