Happy Birthday Mary Tyler Moore

She can turn the world on with her smile, something that's been in evidence since well before Sonny Curtis wrote the words to Love Is All Around, which was used to introduce Mary Tyler Moore to TV audiences most Saturday nights from 1970 to 1977...

Initially a dancer, in 1961 she was cast (from a field of 60) as Laurie Petrie in the classic sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, where her pert personality (and even perkier ass) set a new standard for TV wives; playing a young married couple, she and Dick Van Dyke had some serious carnality in their chemistry.

When that show went off the air in 1966, Moore made a few movies and did some theatre - including a turn as Holly Golightly in a notorious 1966 flop musical version of Breakfast at Tiffany's on Broadway, and the truly bizarre film Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) - while waiting for the perfect vehicle to bring her back to television; she found it in 1970.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show touched a nerve in American life, giving the nascent Women's Movement a telegenic and well-loved proponent, as well as blending the two halves of the sitcom (domestic and workplace) even more handily than had her previous gig. It also spawned a number of spin-offs, such as Rhoda, Phyllis, and Lou Grant, as well as featuring the abundant comedic talents of Edward Asner, Gavin MacLeod, Ted Knight, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, Betty White, and Georgia Engel.

Since that show ended in 1977, Moore has made an Oscar-nominated appearance in Ordinary People (1980) and was memorable in David O. Russell's 1996 film Flirting with Disaster, a movie so good even Patricia Arquette and her dead eyes couldn't ruin it.
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