More MARY TYLER MOORE

Keep this in mind for your TV viewing this coming Friday night, May 26th. HBO will premiere a new documentary entitled BEING MARY TYLER MOORE. We will learn new things about the woman who won national TV fame playing Laura Petrie on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, local newsroom producer Mary Richards on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and got a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar nomination for her dramatic performance in ORDINARY PEOPLE, Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1980. Terry Sims is the documentary's associate producer. He was Moore's executive assistant for 25 years. 

I met Terry and Mary when she was doing TV interviews to promote her new film work in 1982's SIX WEEKS co-starring Dudley. I worked on the ABC affiliate at the time, doing entertainment features for the city's edition of PM MAGAZINE. My interview of Mary Tyler Moore was one of my first celebrity interviews to air nationally. She and Terry brought me good luck.

Both of them were extremely gracious. I came away feeling that Mary was not only a strong actress but also a strong woman. There was a air of steeliness about her. Not meanness, mind you. But a strength and steeliness that was forged from years of hard work, disappointments, loss and perseverance. 

I'd read the novel, ORDINARY PEOPLE, when it was a hardcover best-seller. Initially, there was an entertainment news report that Lee Remick was a top choice to play the glacially sophisticated, emotionally guarded Chicago area housewife/mother who has suffered the loss of one son.

When I read that news that director Robert Redford gave Mary Tyler Moore the complicated role, I was young and stunned. Why? Because I was thinking of her as her sitcom characters and the dainty lady who did a dance number in an elevator with Julie Andrews in the movie musical, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE.

After I'd seen 1980's ORDINARY PEOPLE and after I'd interviewed the actress, I was fully aware of why Redford wisely cast her in the role. Here's trailer for the HBO documentary.

In New York City during my VH1 years (1987 to 1990), Terry Sims was a very cool new buddy and extremely kind to me. Sometimes, if I retuned a phone call to his office, Mary would answer the phone. That voice of hers was immediately recognizable.

When I was hired by VH1, I was given a 3-year contract. When I got good reviews in national publications for my veejay work and got my own prime time weeknight celebrity talkshow, my contract was extended to 5 years.

Three years into my job, new management came in and made some sweeping changes. One was to do away with veejay hosts. So I was notified that, come the end of the third year on my contract, I'd be released.

I called Terry to let him know and to thank him for his kindness and support. I told him I'd be job-hunting. He told Mary and, in background, she asked "Is he getting unemployment?"

I had never applied for unemployment in my life at that point. Applying for unemployment money had never even occurred to me.

Mary Tyler Moore got on the phone, asked me to tell her what was going on with my contract and, after I did, responded with "You'll be eligible for unemployment." She told me what to do.

That fact that "Mary Richards" was the one who informed me of my unemployment eligibility after I'd served my time under a broadcast TV contract will always be one of the most awesome moments of my career.

I will definitely be watching the documentary this coming Friday night.