Mary Tyler Moore Couldn’t Land CBS Sitcom Until Dick Van Dyke Lent Her a Helping Hand
Mary Tyler Moore “had gone from being the most popular woman in America to being a has-been in three, four years,” according to Dick Van Dyke Show producer Bill Persky in the documentary Being Mary Tyler Moore. After the sitcom’s cancellation in 1966, Moore couldn’t find a successful vehicle for her talents, in part because she was stuck in the collective consciousness as Laura Petrie.
Stage and film projects were unsuccessful. And “when the show was over, I could tell the network just saw her as the wife who supported,” said Dick Van Dyke this week on Ted Danson’s Where Everyone Knows Your Name podcast. “She wasn’t getting anything from the network.”
But Van Dyke still had a deal with CBS for a series of one-hour specials. Persky pitched the comic actor on a reunion show, both for ratings and “because I think Mary could use it.
Stage and film projects were unsuccessful. And “when the show was over, I could tell the network just saw her as the wife who supported,” said Dick Van Dyke this week on Ted Danson’s Where Everyone Knows Your Name podcast. “She wasn’t getting anything from the network.”
But Van Dyke still had a deal with CBS for a series of one-hour specials. Persky pitched the comic actor on a reunion show, both for ratings and “because I think Mary could use it.
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