Legendary TV Icon Mary Tyler Moore passes away at 80

Almost one whole month into 2017, we have our first major celebrity who passed away. On Wednesday, several media outlets were reporting that legendary television actress Mary Tyler Moore had passed away at the age of 80.

[Jon]

She was born on December 29, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York and was the oldest of three children. She would end up growing up in Flushing, Queens until she was eight years old when they would move to Los Angeles, California. She had small roles in the television industry until 1961 when she would get her first major break in the hit TV show, “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” She would end up being brought on to the show by legendary actor Carl Reiner who was a writer for the show. However, it should be noted that The Dick Van Dyke Show,” was a show based on Reiner’s own life and career as a writer for Sid Cesar’s television variety show.

However, where she would truly begin her road to becoming a legend was with her own show, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” This show was pitched to CBS by Mary Tyler Moore and her husband Grant Tinker and it was a half hour newsroom sitcom. This happened to be one of the one first television shows to have a lead female star. The Mary Tyler Moore show would go on to show young women that they could do what they wanted to do. The show would end up making it until 1977 and Mary would end up doing small projects after the show. She did have two unsuccessful attempts on CBS with Mary in 1985 and Annie McGuire in 1988, but audiences could not get into those shows. Viewers were not able to accept her in any role other that Laura Petrie and Mary Richards from the two shows that she made her career on.

As of this writing, it is unknown as to what she had officially died from, however, it should be noted that she was suffering from a long battle with diabetes. She will be missed as another icon is gone from Hollywood.