Actor Mary Tyler Moore

VisArt Featured Actor of the Week:  Mary Tyler Moore (1936 - 2017)

Multiple-Emmy-award-winning Mary Tyler Moore died this week, and for those who didn’t grow up watching one of her popular TV shows in the 60s or 70s, it might be hard to understand what the media attention about her now is all about. She came to many people’s attention as a comedy “straight man” Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and it’s certainly worth watching some of those old episodes to get a sense of her role. However, her biggest impact was as Mary Richards on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, where she played a single working woman in a strong comedic cast. She could be funny, anxious, or feisty but was somehow always likeable, and she served as a role model of sorts for many women growing up during that period, embodying both the hopes and worries of that generation. She did also expand into plays and movies, most notably as the mom in  1980’s Ordinary People for which she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, but her greatest successes were on TV.

Here’s the NY Times article upon her death:

MaryTyler Moore, Who Incarnated the Modern Woman on TV, Dies at 80

and here are a few of her offerings at our store:

New to (or rediscovering) this actor? Try:

The Dick Van Dyke Show – (1961-1966). We have only one of the four volumes of the “Best of The Dick Van Dyke Show”  IMDb page for this TV Series

The Mary Tyler Moore Show – (1970-1977) We have the first 4 seasons of this TV series.  IMDb page for this TV Series

Ordinary People – (R, 1980). Description from IMDb: The accidental death of the older son of an affluent family deeply strains the relationships among the bitter mother, the good-natured father, and the guilt-ridden younger son. 

IMDb page

Already a fan? Try these less common offerings from our store:

Did you know that she made a few appearances with former co-star Betty White  in the TV series Hot in Cleveland, as Diane? You can catch one in our copies of Season 2

 IMDb page for TV Series

You can also see her in our copy of Flirting with Disaster (R, 1996) starring Ben Stiller and Patricia Arquette  “A young man, his wife, and his incompetent case worker travel across country to find his birth parents.” –from IMDb page

Finally, we have a copy of the hard-to-find and pretty bad  Change of Habit (G, 1969)  in which Moore played a nun and co-starred with Elvis Presley!!  IMDb page

Review - Embrace of the Serpent

Fudgy Says: this is a MUST SEE pick. this film is visually stunning and yet it's so hard to watch. although this is a fictional story based on the accounts of two scientists, Embrace of the Serpent shows us the damaging results of colonization in the Amazon. I highly recommend watching this film. The cinematography is amazing, the acting (with non-professional/real indigenous actors!!!) was on point, and the story itself was one that desperately needed to be told. Not to mention that the director was able to handle the subject with incredible grace and cultural sensitivity.

YouTube Embrace of the Serpent Trailer

"At once blistering and poetic, the ravages of colonialism cast a dark shadow over the South American landscape in EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT, the third feature by Ciro Guerra. Filmed in stunning black-and-white, SERPENT centers on Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, and the two scientists who, over the course of 40 years, build a friendship with him. The film was inspired by the real-life journals of two explorers (Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes) who traveled through the Colombian Amazon during the last century in search of the sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic Yakruna plant."