Mary Tyler Moore, beloved TV actress, dies at 80
Mary Tyler Moore, the beloved TV actress whose show ushered in a new era for women in television, died at the age of 80 on Wednesday, according to her longtime representative Mara Buxbaum.
“Today beloved icon Mary Tyler Moore passed away at the age of 80 in the company of friends and her loving husband of over 33 years, Dr. S. Robert Levine,” Buxbaum said. “A groundbreaking actress, producer, and passionate advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Mary will be remembered as a fearless visionary who turned the world on with her smile.”
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The “Mary Tyler Moore” show, which debuted in 1970, had a huge impact on women in television, most notably Oprah Winfrey.
“I was 16 years old when I first saw this groundbreaking show,” Winfrey said of the show. “I watched this show every Saturday night like my life depended on it.”
“The show was a light in my life, and Mary was a trailblazer for my generation. She’s the reason I wanted my own production company,” she added. “It’s the reason there is a Harpo because that was the inspiration.”
Moore credited her success to the fact that she kept her own voice and experience at the forefront of the show.
“I think I can take responsibility for that in that I was the audience,” she told Larry King in 2002. “I was the voice of sanity around whom all these crazies did their dance. And I reacted in the same way that a member of the audience would have reacted.”
Mary Tyler Moore will be dearly missed, and we at theGrio are sad to hear of her passing.
