Mary Tyler Moore (born December 29, 1936) is an Academy Award-nominated and seven-time Emmy Award winning American actress and comedian, primarily known for her roles in sitcoms and television.

Moore is arguably best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977), in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a news producer at WJM-TV in Minneapolis, and for her early role as Laura Petrie, wife of television comedy writer Rob Petrie (played by Dick Van Dyke) on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966). Moore played leading roles in two of the most fondly remembered classic comedy series, making a tremendous impact on television over two decades.

She has also appeared in various films over the years. Her best-remembered performance came in 1980's Ordinary People, which garnered her an Oscar nomination for a role that was the polar opposite of the characters viewers had become accustomed to seeing her portray on television. She has also been active in charity work and various political causes, particularly diabetes and animal rights.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns that aired on CBS from September 19, 1970 to March 19, 1977. It was a breakthrough in television, the first time that a central character on a show was an independent career woman: "As Mary Richards, a single woman in her thirties, Moore presented a character different from other single TV women of the time. She was not widowed or divorced or seeking a man to support her."

It has also been cited as "one of the most acclaimed television programs ever produced" in US television history. Over a seven year period, it received high praise from critics and Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series three years in a row (1975, 1976, and 1977). The show continued to be honored long after the final episode aired. In 2003, USA Today called it "one of the best shows ever to air on TV". In 1997, TV Guide selected a Mary Tyler Moore Show episode as the best ever , and, in 1999, Entertainment Weekly picked Mary's hat toss in the opening credits as television's 2 nd greatest moment.

The Mary Tyler Moore Hour was a television series broadcast by CBS in the spring of 1979.

Like her first series, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore's eponymous sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show (which ran for seven full seasons from 1970 to 1977), had been highly-rated, critically-acclaimed, and the recipient of many Emmy Awards. Her next effort, the variety series Mary, was such a disaster that CBS pulled it from its 1978 fall lineup after only three broadcasts. In The Mary Tyler Moore Hour, Moore attempted a blending of the two formats, the sitcoms at which she had triumphed and the variety hour at which she had totally failed.

The Mary Tyler Moore Hour starred Moore as Mary McKinnon, the host of a fictional program, The Mary McKinnon Show. McKinnon was an established star of comedy who could also sing and dance as needed (any resemblance to Moore herself was, of course, purely intentional). Also seen were her personal secretary and assistant, Iris Chapman (Joyce Van Patten), her producer, Harry Sinclair (Michael Lombard), her page, Kenneth Christy (Michael Keaton), her maid Ruby (Dody Goodman), and her head writer Mort Zimmick (Bobby Ramsen). In addition to these regulars, major stars appeared as themselves in the guise of being guest stars on the fictional McKinnon program. Some of these included Lucille Ball, Beatrice Arthur, Nancy Walker, Linda Lavin, Bonnie Franklin, Ken Howard, Mike Douglas, Gene Kelly, Johnny Mathis and, perhaps most notably, long-time former co-star Dick Van Dyke.

The show's premise was to give the audience a fictionalized view into the life of the star of a television variety show, much as The Jack Benny Show had purported to do two decades earlier on the same network. Unlike the Benny show, or Moore's sitcoms, but more like her earlier variety show the previous fall, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour would have trouble attracting a sizeable audience. It premiered on March 4th and was cancelled after its June 10th broadcast. Moore announced plans to return in a new sitcom in the fall of 1980, but instead turned to Broadway, where she starred in a revival of Whose Life Is It Anyway? (winning a special 1980 Tony Award for her performance of a role originally played by Tom Conti), and then went back to Hollywood, where she played the emotionally crippled mother in the acclaimed film Ordinary People, directed by Robert Redford. Moore did not return to series television and the sitcom format until the fall of 1985, with a short-lived sitcom entitled Mary.

Mary Richards moves to Minneapolis after a relationship goes bad. She finds work as an associate producer in a small television newsroom where the characters include Lou Grant, her gruff boss, Murray Slaughter the humorous writer, and Ted Baxter the Anchor Man who spends his time mispronouncing country names. Mary continues to hope for romance, but finds that her friends are more dependable. Written by Anonymous

Mary Tyler Moore was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on December 29, 1936, though Moore's family relocated to California when she was eight. Her childhood was troubled, due in part to her mother's alcoholism. The oldest of three siblings, she attended a Catholic high school and married upon her graduation, in 1955. Her only child, Richie, was born soon after. A dancer at first, Moore's first break in show business was in 1955, as a dancing kitchen appliance - Happy Hotpoint, the Hotpoint Appliance elf, in commercials generally broadcast during the popular TV program "Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, The" (1952). She then shifted from dancing to acting, and work soon came, at first a number of guest roles on TV series, but eventually a recurring role as "Sam", Richard Diamond's sultry answering service girl, on "Richard Diamond, Private Detective" (1957), her performance being particularly notorious because her legs (usually dangling a pump on her toe) were shown instead of her face. Although these early roles often took advantage of her willowy charms (in particular, her famously-beautiful dancer's legs), Moore's career soon took a more substantive turn as she was cast in two of the most highly regarded comedies in television history, which would air first-run for most of the Sixties and Seventies. In the first of these, "Dick Van Dyke Show, The" (1961), Moore played "Laura Petrie", the charmingly loopy wife of star Dick Van Dyke. The show became famous for its very clever writing and terrific comic ensemble - Moore and her fellow performers received multiple Emmy awards for their work. Meanwhile, she had separated from her first husband, and later married ad man (and, later, network executive) Grant Tinker. After the end of "Dick Van Dyke Show, The" (1961), Moore focused on movie-making, co-starring in five between the end of the show and the start of "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970), including Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), in which she plays a ditsy aspiring actress, and an inane Elvis Presley vehicle, Change of Habit (1969), in which she plays a nun-to-be and love interest for Presley. Also included in this mixed bag of films was a first-rate TV movie, Run a Crooked Mile (1969) (TV), which was an early showcase for Moore's considerable talent at dramatic acting. After trying her hand at movies for a few years, Moore decided, a bit reluctantly, to return to TV, but on her terms. The result was "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970), which was produced by MTM Enterprises, a company she had formed with Tinker, and which later went on to produce scores of other television programs. Moore starred as "Mary Richards", who moves to Minneapolis/St. Paul on the heels of a failed relationship. Mary finds work at the news room of WJM-TV, whose news program is the lowest-rated in the city, and establishes fast friendships with her colleagues and her neighbors. The show was a commercial and critical success and for years was a fixture of CBS television's unbeatable Saturday night line-up. Moore and Tinker were determined from the start to make the show a cut above the average, and it certainly was - instead of going for a barrage of gags, the humor took longer to develop, and arose out of the interaction between the characters in more realistic situations. It was also one of the earliest TV portrayals of a woman who was happy and successful on her own rather than simply being a man's wife. "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970) is generally included amongst the finest television programs ever produced in America. Moore ended the show in 1977, while it was still on a high point, but found it difficult to flee the beloved "Mary Richards" persona - her subsequent attempts at television series, variety programs and specials (such as the mortifying disco-era Mary's Incredible Dream (1976) (TV)) usually failed, but even her dramatic work, which is generally excellent, fell under the shadow of "Mary Richards". With time, however, her body of dramatic acting came to be recognized on its own, with such memorable work as in Ordinary People (1980), as an aloof WASP mother who not-so-secretly resents her younger son's survival; in Finnegan Begin Again (1985) (TV), as a middle-aged widow who finds love with a man whose wife is slowly slipping away, in Lincoln (1988) (TV), as the troubled "Mary Todd Lincoln", and in Stolen Babies (1993) (TV), as an infamous baby smuggler (for which she won her sixth Emmy award). She also inspired a new appreciation for her famed comic talents in Flirting with Disaster (1996), in which she is hilarious as the resentful adoptive mother of a son who is seeking his birth parents. Moore has also acted on Broadway, and she won a Tony Award for her performance in "Whose Life Is It Anyway?". Widely acknowledged as being much tougher and more high-strung than her iconic image would suggest, Moore has had a life with more than the normal share of ups and downs. Both of her siblings predeceased her, her sister Elizabeth of a drug overdose in 1978 and her brother of cancer after a failed attempt at assisted suicide, Moore having been the assistant. Moore's troubled son Richie shot and killed himself in what was officially ruled an accident in 1980. Moore has long been diagnosed an insulin-dependent diabetic, and had a bout with alcoholism in the mid-70s. Divorced from Tinker since 1981, she has been married to physician Dr. Robert Levine since 1983. Despite the opening credits of "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970), in which she throws a package of meat into her shopping cart, Moore is a vegetarian and a proponent of animal rights. She is an active spokesperson for both diabetes issues and animal rights. She and Levine live in Upstate New York and Manhattan.