I don't get the impression she was the warm mother that her best-known sitcom characters may suggest...
Not only did her son commit suicide, but when she was asked about having another child she said she would like a do-over essentially because SHE "didn't get enough out of it the first time." She was very young, she mused, and would like to have another chance...for herself.
The trouble with your reasoning is that MTM had never played a mother on TV. She was Dick Van Dyke's wife, but they had no children. Her Mary Richards character was single and childless throughout the run of the show. Robert Redford suggested that he wanted her to play beyond her usual range, for this role.
shareThey had a son on the Dick Van Dyke show. I recall the opening sequence in later years of the show, the montage includes Mary and the son coming over to Dick when he gets home.
Then there is the classic episode right after the baby is born, and Mary is convinced that they brought the wrong baby home. They contact the parents of the other baby born around the same time in that hospital. The other parents come over -- and they were black!
You must be the change you seek in the world. -- Gandhi
Yep, Richie Rosebud : )
shareMary Tyler Moore is a Capricorn, which is arguably the coldest and most unemotional sign of the zodiac. They are the beginning of winter, and therefore their emotions are not the warmest.
shareMary Tyler Moore is a Capricorn, which is arguably the coldest and most unemotional sign of the zodiac.
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I've always been a tad more than just a little interested in astrology, and, boy, now that you said this. This is big. Makes perfect sense. My mother was born on January 6th, which is pretty much the middle of that astrological span and she is the coldest person I have ever met in my life. In every way. Bar none. She rarely smiles, and she likes it so cold in her own bedroom that she wants to be able to see her breath. No joke. You can see her dark blue veins. She's one ice-breathin' mama!
I thought I was gonna die! - Roseanne Roseannadanna
What about those born in the Southern Hemisphere, that is the middle of Summer for them? Utter Pish!
Don't eat the whole ones! Those are for the guests. 🍪
Mary Tyler Moore is a Capricorn, which is arguably the coldest and most unemotional sign of the zodiac. They are the beginning of winter, and therefore their emotions are not the warmest.
She was Dick Van Dyke's wife, but they had no children.
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This role was not a stretch for Moore, Mary Richards was. I was not surprised by her performance. (dramatic Tv roles preceded OP)
She has always seemed liked someone with this inner-turmoil, perhaps attributed to her childhood, and why she claimed "I wanted to be a star". At any rate, Moore has always seemed honest about her feelings, at least. (I recall when Barbra Colby was murdered, and Mary was cited by her quote which was not sentimental over the fact).
Mary's son was probably killed by accident -- but was unfortunately timed just weeks after the movie's release and the tabloids has a field day because of it, trying to draw parallels.
The gun which went off and killed Richie was then taken off the market due to a hair trigger, and had caused several similar deaths.
Mary has conceded there are whiffs of the character in herself, but that's something Beth could never have admitted.
She also has admitted something else Beth never could have: that her young son was handed off to nannies as his parents pursued their careers (common then amongst the privileged) and she'd never considered at the time that the boy got so little attention. And she hinted that she wondered if that neglect somehow led him to what happened in the end: not a suicide apparently, but a fondness for guns (he was an avid collector).
--
LBJ's mistress on JFK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXeutDmuRA
There was also a news story when Barbra Colby was murdered which painted Moore as cold, when she was quoted saying something like "it's a tragic thing when it happens, but I'm not going to lose sleep..."
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