Betty Ford
Official White House photograph, 1974
First Lady of the United States
In office August 9, 1974 – January 20, 1977
Preceded by	Pat Nixon
Succeeded by	Rosalynn Carter
Second Lady of the United States
In office December 6, 1973 – August 9, 1974
Preceded by	Judy Agnew
Succeeded by	Happy Rockefeller
1st Chair of the Board, Betty Ford Center
In office 1982–2005
Succeeded by	Susan Ford Bales
Personal details
Born	Elizabeth Ann Bloomer (1918-04-08)April 8, 1918 Chicago, Illinois
Died	July 8, 2011(2011-07-08) (aged 93) Rancho Mirage, California
Resting place	Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States[1]
Spouse(s)	William G. Warren (m. 1942–1947, divorced) Gerald Ford (m. 1948–2006, his death)
Relations	Parents: William Stephenson Bloomer Sr. (1874–1934) Hortense (née Neahr) Bloomer (1884–1948)
Children	Michael Gerald Ford (born 1950) John "Jack" Gardner Ford (born 1952) Steven Meigs Ford (born 1956) Susan Elizabeth Ford (born 1957)
Occupation	First Lady of the United States Activist
Religion	Episcopalian
Signature

Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren Ford (April 8, 1918 – July 8, 2011),^[2][3] better known as Betty Ford, was First Lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977 during the presidency of her husband Gerald Ford. As First Lady, she was active in social policy and created precedents as a politically active presidential wife.^[4]

Throughout her husband's term in office, she maintained high approval ratings despite opposition from some conservative Republicans who objected to her more moderate and liberal positions on social issues. Ford was noted for raising breast cancer awareness following her 1974 mastectomy and was a passionate supporter of, and activist for, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Pro-choice on abortion and a leader in the Women's Movement, she gained fame as one of the most candid first ladies in history, commenting on every hot-button issue of the time, including feminism, equal pay, the ERA, sex, drugs, abortion, and gun control. She also raised awareness of addiction when she announced her long-running battle with alcoholism in the 1970s.

Following her White House years, she continued to lobby for the ERA and remained active in the feminist movement. She is the founder, and served as the first chair of the board of directors, of the Betty Ford Center for substance abuse and addiction and is a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal (co-presentation with her husband, Gerald R. Ford, October 21, 1998) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (alone, presented 1991, by George H. W. Bush).

Early life and career[link]

Betty Bloomer at age 18, 1936

She was born Elizabeth Ann Bloomer in Chicago, Illinois, the third child and only daughter of William Stephenson Bloomer, Sr. (July 19, 1874 – July 18, 1934), a traveling salesman for Royal Rubber Co., and his wife, Hortense (née Neahr; July 11, 1884 – November 20, 1948).^[5] Her two older brothers were Robert and William Jr. After living briefly in Denver, Colorado, she grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she graduated from Central High School.^[6]

After the 1929 stock market crash, when Ford was age 14, she began modeling clothes and teaching children dances such as the foxtrot, waltz, and big apple. She also entertained and worked with children with disabilities at the Mary Free Bed Home for Crippled Children. She studied dance at the Calla Travis Dance Studio, graduating in 1935.^{[citation needed]}

When Ford was age 16, her father died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the family's garage while working under their car, despite the garage doors being open.^[7][8] He died the day before his 60th birthday.^[5]

In 1936, after she graduated from high school, she proposed continuing her study of dance in New York City, but her mother refused. Instead, she attended the Bennington School of Dance in Bennington, Vermont, for two summers, where she studied under director Martha Hill with choreographers Martha Graham and Hanya Holm. After being accepted by Graham as a student, Ford moved to New York City to live in its Manhattan borough's Chelsea neighborhood and worked as a fashion model for the John Robert Powers firm in order to finance her dance studies. She joined Graham's auxiliary troupe and eventually performed with the company at Carnegie Hall in New York City.^[5]

Her mother opposed her daughter's choice of a career and insisted that she move home, but Ford resisted. They finally came to a compromise: she would return home for six months, and if she still wanted to return to New York City at the end of the six months, her mother would not protest further. Ford became immersed in her life in Grand Rapids and did not return to New York City. Her mother remarried to family friend and neighbor, Arthur Meigs Goodwin, and Ford lived with them. She got a job as assistant to the fashion coordinator for Herpolsheimer's, a local department store, as well as organizing her own dance group and taught dance at various sites in Grand Rapids.^[5]

Marriages and family[link]

Gerald and Betty Ford on their wedding day, 1948

In 1942, she married William C. Warren,^[6] who worked for his father in insurance sales, and whom she had known since she was 12. Warren began selling insurance for another company shortly after, later he worked for Continental Can Co., and after that Widdicomb Furniture, and the couple moved frequently because of his work. At one point, they lived in Toledo, Ohio, where she was employed at the department store Lasalle & Koch as a demonstrator, a job that entailed being a model and saleswoman. She worked a production line for a frozen-food company in Fulton, New York, and once back in Grand Rapids returned to work at Herpolsheimer's, this time as "The" Fashion Coordinator.^[9] Warren was an alcoholic and in poor health. Just after Betty decided to file for divorce, he went into a coma. She took care of him for another two years as he convalesced, at his family's home. She stayed upstairs while he was nursed downstairs. Then when he recovered, they were finally divorced on September 22, 1947, on the grounds of "excessive, repeated cruelty".^[5] They had no children.

On October 15, 1948, she married Gerald Ford, a lawyer and World War II veteran, at Grace Episcopal Church, in Grand Rapids. Gerald Ford was then campaigning for what would be his first of thirteen terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the wedding was delayed until shortly before the elections because, as The New York Times reported, "Jerry was running for Congress and wasn't sure how voters might feel about his marrying a divorced ex-dancer."^[5][10]

Married for fifty-eight years until his death, the couple had three sons: Michael Gerald Ford (born 1950), John Gardner Ford (nicknamed Jack; born 1952), Steven Meigs Ford (born 1956), and a daughter, Susan Elizabeth Ford (born 1957).^[2] She never spanked or hit her children, believing that there were better, more constructive ways to deal with discipline and punishment.^[11]

The Fords moved to the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and lived there for twenty-five years. Gerald Ford rose to become the highest-ranking Republican in the House, then was appointed Vice President to Richard Nixon when Spiro Agnew resigned from that position in 1973. He became president in 1974, upon Nixon's resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal.^{[citation needed]}

They were among the more openly affectionate First Couples in American history. Neither was shy about their mutual love and equal respect, and they were known to have a strong personal and political partnership.^[12]

First Lady of the United States[link]

National power, influence, and candor[link]

Vice President Gerald Ford is sworn in as the 38th President of the United States by Chief Justice Warren Burger in the East Room at the White House as Betty Ford looks on

When compared to her predecessor, Pat Nixon, who was noted by one reporter to be the "most disciplined, composed first lady in history", reporters questioned what kind of first lady Ford would be.^[13] In the opinion of The New York Times and several presidential historians, "Mrs. Ford's impact on American culture may be far wider and more lasting than that of her husband, who served a mere 896 days, much of it spent trying to restore the dignity of the office of the president."^{[citation needed]}

The paper went on to describe her as "a product and symbol of the cultural and political times — doing the Bump dance along the corridors of the White House, donning a mood ring, chatting on her CB radio with the handle First Mama — a housewife who argued passionately for equal rights for women, a mother of four who mused about drugs, abortion and premarital sex aloud and without regret."^[14] In 1975, in an interview with McCall's, Ford said that she was asked just about everything, except for how often she and the president had sex. "And if they'd asked me that I would have told them," she said, adding that her response would be, "As often as possible."^[8]

Gerald and Betty Ford in the presidential limousine, 1974

The Fords host Queen Elizabeth II and her husband the The Duke of Edinburgh in the President's Dining Room at the White House during a 1976 state visit.

She was open about the benefits of psychiatric treatment, and spoke understandingly about marijuana use and premarital sex, and as a new First Lady pointedly stated during a televised White House tour that she and the President shared the same bed. After Ford appeared on 60 Minutes in a characteristically candid interview in which she discussed how she would counsel her daughter if she was having an affair, saying that she "would not be surprised,"^[15] and the possibility that her children may have experimented with marijuana. Some conservatives called her "No Lady" and even demanded her "resignation", but her overall approval rating was at seventy-five percent. As she later said, during her husband's failed 1976 presidential campaign, "I would give my life to have Jerry have my poll numbers."^[14]

Social policy and political activism[link]

Betty Ford's official White House portrait, painted in 1977 by Felix de Cossio

During her time as First Lady, Ford was also an outspoken advocate of women's rights and was a prominent force in the Women's Movement of the 1970s. She supported the proposed ERA and lobbied state legislatures to ratify the amendment, and took on opponents of the amendment. She was also un-apologetically pro-choice^[16] and her active political role prompted Time to call her the country's "Fighting First Lady" and name her a Woman of the Year in 1975, representing American women along with other feminist icons.^[4]

For a time, it was unclear whether Gerald Ford shared his wife's pro-choice viewpoint. However, in December 1999, he told interviewer Larry King that he, too, was pro-choice and had been criticized for that stance by conservative forces within the Republican Party.^[16]

Health and breast cancer awareness[link]

Weeks after Ford became First Lady, she underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer on September 28, 1974, after being diagnosed with the disease. Ford decided to be open about her cancer because "There had been so much cover-up during Watergate that we wanted to be sure there would be no cover-up in the Ford administration"^[17] Her openness about her illness raised the visibility of a disease that Americans had previously been reluctant to talk about. "When other women have this same operation, it doesn't make any headlines," she told Time. "But the fact that I was the wife of the President put it in headlines and brought before the public this particular experience I was going through. It made a lot of women realize that it could happen to them. I'm sure I've saved at least one person — maybe more." Further amplifying the public awareness of breast cancer were reports that several weeks after Ford's cancer surgery, Happy Rockefeller, the wife of vice president Nelson Rockefeller, also underwent a mastectomy.^[18] The spike in women self-examining after Ford went public with the diagnosis led to an increase in reported cases of breast cancer, a phenomenon known as the "Betty Ford blip".^[17]

The arts[link]

Ford was an advocate of the arts while First Lady and was instrumental in Martha Graham receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976. She received an award from Parsons The New School for Design in recognition of her style.^{[citation needed]}

Conceding the 1976 election[link]

After Gerald Ford's defeat by Jimmy Carter in the 1976 Presidential election she delivered her husband's concession speech because he lost his voice while campaigning.^[2]

Post-White House career[link]

After leaving the White House in 1977, she continued to lead an active public life. In addition to founding the Betty Ford Center, she remained active in women's issues taking on numerous speaking engagements and lending her name to charities for fundraising.^[19]

The Betty Ford Center[link]

In 1978, the Ford family staged an intervention and forced her to confront her alcoholism and an addiction to opioid analgesics that had been prescribed in the early 1960s for a pinched nerve.^{[citation needed]} "I liked alcohol," she wrote in her 1987 memoir. "It made me feel warm. And I loved pills. They took away my tension and my pain". In 1982, after her recovery, she established the Betty Ford Center (initially called the Betty Ford Clinic) in Rancho Mirage, California, for the treatment of chemical dependency.^{[citation needed]} She co-authored with Chris Chase a 1987 book about her treatment, Betty: A Glad Awakening. In 2003, Ford produced another book, Healing and Hope: Six Women from the Betty Ford Center Share Their Powerful Journeys of Addiction and Recovery.

In 2005, Ford relinquished her chair of the center's board of directors to her daughter Susan. She had held the top post at the center since its founding. Her husband joked about how she had been chairperson of the board while he had only been a president.^[12]

Women's movement[link]

Ford continued to be an active leader and activist of the feminist movement after the Ford administration, and continued to strongly advocate and lobby politicians and state legislatures for passage of the ERA. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ford to the second National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year (the first had been appointed by President Ford). That same year, she joined First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson and Rosalynn Carter to open and participate in the National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas, where she endorsed measures in the convention's National Plan of Action, a report sent to the state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, and the President on how to improve the status of American women.^[20] As she was during her years in the White House, Ford continued to be an outspoken supporter of equal pay, breast cancer awareness, and the ERA throughout her life.^[21]

In 1978, the deadline for ratification of the ERA was extended from 1979 to 1982, resulting largely from a march of a hundred thousand people on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The march was led by prominent feminist leaders, including Ford, Bella Abzug, Elizabeth Chittick, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. In 1981, Eleanor Smeal, the National Organization for Women's president, announced Ford's appointment to be the co-chair, with Alan Alda, of the ERA Countdown Campaign.^[22] As the deadline approached, Ford led marches, parades and rallies for the ERA with other feminists including First Daughter Maureen Reagan and various Hollywood actors. Ford was credited with rejuvenating the ERA movement and inspiring more women to continue working for the ERA and visited states, including Illinois, where ratification was believed to have the most realistic chance of passing.^[23] In 2004, she reaffirmed her pro-choice stance and her support for the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade and reaffirmed her belief in and support for the ratification of the ERA.^[24]

Later life[link]

Betty Ford is awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President George H. W. Bush, 1991. First Lady Barbara Bush holds the medal.

Betty Ford (far right) with President George W. Bush and former President Ford on April 23, 2006

President Ford and Mrs Ford's tomb at his Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan

In 1987, Ford underwent quadruple coronary bypass surgery and recovered without complications.

In November 18, 1991, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H.W. Bush^[25] and a Congressional Gold Medal in 1999. A Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to her and her husband in 1999.^[26]

On May 8, 2003, Ford received the Woodrow Wilson Award in Los Angeles for her public service from the Woodrow Wilson Center of the Smithsonian Institution.^{[citation needed]}

During these years, she and her husband resided in Rancho Mirage and in Beaver Creek, Colorado.^{[citation needed]}

Gerald Ford died, age 93, at their Rancho Mirage home of heart failure on December 26, 2006. Despite her advanced age and frail physical condition, Ford traveled across the country and took part in the funeral events in California, Washington, D.C., and Michigan.^{[citation needed]}

Following her husband's death, Ford continued to live in Rancho Mirage. She was the third longest-lived first lady behind Bess Truman and Lady Bird Johnson. Poor health and increasing frailty due to operations in August 2006 and April 2007 for blood clots in her legs caused her to largely curtail her public life. Her ill health prevented her from attending Johnson's funeral in July 2007; Ford's daughter Susan represented her mother at the funeral service.^{[citation needed]}

Gerald and Betty Ford were the first U.S. President and First Lady to both live into their nineties. Bess Truman and Lady Bird Johnson lived into their nineties but their husbands Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson did not. Herbert Hoover and John Adams both lived into their nineties but their wives Lou Henry Hoover and Abigail Adams did not. On April 8, 2011, Ford turned 93, the same age that her late husband, President Ford reached on his last birthday, July 14, 2006. On July 6, 2011, former First Lady Nancy Reagan turned 90, and thus she and her husband, former President Ronald Reagan, joined the Fords as the second first couple to both live into their nineties.^{[citation needed]}

Death and funeral[link]

Betty Ford died of natural causes on July 8, 2011, at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, aged 93.^[27]

Funeral services were held in Palm Desert, California, on July 12, 2011, with over 800 people in attendance, including former president George W. Bush, First Lady Michelle Obama and former first ladies Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton.^[19] Rosalynn Carter, Cokie Roberts and Geoffrey Mason, a member of the Board of the Betty Ford Center delivered eulogies.

On July 13, her casket was flown to Grand Rapids where it lay in repose at the Gerald Ford Museum overnight.^[28]

On July 14, a second service was held at Grace Episcopal Church with eulogies given by Lynne Cheney, former Ford Museum director Richard Norton Smith and son, Steven. In attendance were former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former first lady Barbara Bush.^[19] In her remarks, Mrs. Cheney noted that July 14 would have been Gerald Ford's 98th birthday.^[29] After the service, she was buried next to her husband on the museum grounds.^[28]

Bibliography[link]

• Ford, Betty; Chase, Chris (1978). The Times of My Life. New York City, New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-011298-1. 
• Ford, Betty; Chase, Chris (1987). Betty — A Glad Awakening. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-23502-0. 
• Ford, Betty; Betty Ford Center (2003). Healing and Hope — Six Women from the Betty Ford Center Share Their Powerful Journeys of Addiction and Recovery. New York City, New York: Putnam (Penguin Group). ISBN 978-0-399-15138-5. 

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Government of the United States portal

• Feminist Movement in the United States (1963–1982)
• List of breast cancer patients according to occupation
• List of First Ladies of the United States

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Betty Ford, US Presidential First Lady at Find a Grave
• Betty Ford at the Internet Movie Database
• Remembering Betty Ford — slideshow by Life
• Ford, Betty from Encyclopædia Britannica

v t e First Ladies of the United States Martha Washington Abigail Adams Martha Jefferson Randolph Dolley Madison Elizabeth Monroe Louisa Adams Emily Donelson Sarah Jackson Angelica Van Buren Anna Harrison Jane Harrison Letitia Tyler Priscilla Tyler Julia Tyler Sarah Polk Margaret Taylor Abigail Fillmore Jane Pierce Harriet Lane Mary Lincoln Eliza Johnson Julia Grant Lucy Hayes Lucretia Garfield Mary McElroy Rose Cleveland Frances Cleveland Caroline Harrison Mary Harrison Frances Cleveland Ida McKinley Edith Roosevelt Helen Taft Ellen Wilson Edith Wilson Florence Harding Grace Coolidge Lou Hoover Eleanor Roosevelt Bess Truman Mamie Eisenhower Jacqueline Kennedy Lady Bird Johnson Pat Nixon Betty Ford Rosalynn Carter Nancy Reagan Barbara Bush Hillary Clinton Laura Bush Michelle Obama

v t e Second Ladies of the United States Abigail Adams Ann Gerry Hannah Minthorne Tompkins Floride Calhoun Letitia Christian Tyler Sophia Dallas Abigail Fillmore Mary Cyrene Burch Breckinridge Ellen Vesta Emery Hamlin Eliza Johnson Ellen Maria Colfax Eliza Hendricks Anna Morton Letitia Stevenson Jennie Tuttle Hobart Edith Roosevelt Cornelia Cole Fairbanks Carrie Babcock Sherman Lois Irene Marshall Grace Coolidge Caro Dawes Mariette Rheiner Garner Ilo Wallace Bess Truman Jane Hadley Barkley Pat Nixon Lady Bird Johnson Muriel Humphrey Judy Agnew Betty Ford Happy Rockefeller Joan Mondale Barbara Bush Marilyn Quayle Tipper Gore Lynne Cheney Jill Biden

v t e Gerald R. Ford July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006 Life Assassination attempts by Lynette Fromme and Sara Jane Moore · Electoral history · Death and state funeral Presidency Inauguration · Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974 · 1975 State of the Union Address · National Security Study Memorandum 200 · Whip inflation now · Judges appointed · Supreme Court candidates Family Betty Ford (spouse) · Michael Gerald Ford (son) · John Gardner Ford (son) · Steven Meigs Ford (son) · Susan Ford Bales (daughter) · Dorothy Gardner Ford (mother) · Gerald Rudolff Ford (stepfather) · Leslie Lynch King, Sr. (biological father) · Charles Henry King (grandfather) · Liberty (family dog) Namesakes Gerald R. Ford Birthsite and Gardens · Gerald R. Ford, Jr., House · Gerald R. Ford International Airport · Betty Ford Center · President Gerald R. Ford, Jr. Boyhood Home · Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library · Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy · USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) · Gerald R. Ford Freeway

Mary Tyler Moore
Moore in 1993
Born	(1936-12-29) December 29, 1936 (age 75) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Nationality	American
Education	Immaculate Heart High School
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1958–present
Home town	Minneapolis, Minnesota
Television	The Mary Tyler Moore Show The Dick Van Dyke Show
Spouse	Dick Meeker (1955–1961) Grant Tinker (1962–1981) Robert Levine (1983–present)
Children	Richard Meeker (deceased)

Mary Tyler Moore (born December 29, 1936) is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms. Moore is best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77), in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as Laura Petrie (Dick Van Dyke's wife) on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–66). She also appeared in a number of films, most notably 1980's Ordinary People, in which she played a role that was the polar opposite of the television characters she had portrayed, and for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Moore has also been active in charity work and various political causes, particularly around the issues of animal rights and Diabetes mellitus type 1. Mary Tyler Moore was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the beginning of The Mary Tyler Moore Show,^[1] and also dealt with alcoholism,^[2] which was treated in the 1980s. In May 2011, Moore underwent elective brain surgery to remove a benign meningioma.^[3]

Early life[link]

Mary Tyler Moore was born in the Brooklyn Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, to George Tyler Moore, a clerk, and his wife Marjorie (Hackett). Her father was Roman Catholic and her mother a Catholic convert.^{[citation needed]} Mary was the eldest of three siblings.^[4] Her maternal grandparents were immigrants from England. Her paternal great-grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Tilghman Moore, owned the house which is now Stonewall Jackson's Headquarters Museum.^[5] Moore's family moved to Los Angeles when she was eight years old. She attended Saint Rose of Lima, a Catholic school in Brooklyn, followed by St. Ambrose School (Los Angeles) and the Immaculate Heart High School (Los Feliz).^[6][7]

Career[link]

Television[link]

At the age of 17, Moore aspired to be a dancer. She started her career as "Happy Hotpoint", a tiny elf dancing on Hotpoint appliances in TV commercials during the 1950s series Ozzie and Harriet.^[8] She appeared in 39 TV commercials in five days, ultimately earning about $6,000 from her first job.^[9] Her time as "Happy Hotpoint" ended when it became difficult to conceal her pregnancy in the dancing elf costume.^[8] Moore modeled anonymously on the covers of a number of record albums and auditioned for the role of the older daughter of Danny Thomas for his long-running TV show, but was turned down. Much later, Thomas explained that "no daughter of mine could have that [little] nose."

Moore's first regular television role was as a mysterious and glamorous telephone receptionist on Richard Diamond, Private Detective. To add to the mystique, only her voice was heard and her shapely legs appeared on camera.^[10] About this time, she guest-starred on John Cassavetes's NBC detective series Johnny Staccato. In 1960, she guest starred in two episodes, "The O'Mara's Ladies" and "All The O'Mara's Horses", of the William Bendix-Doug McClure NBC western series, Overland Trail. Several months later, she appeared in the first episode, entitled "One Blonde Too Many", of NBC's one-season The Tab Hunter Show, a sitcom starring the former teen idol as a bachelor cartoonist. In 1961, Moore appeared in several big parts in movies and on television, including Bourbon Street Beat, 77 Sunset Strip, Surfside Six, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Steve Canyon, Hawaiian Eye, Thriller and Lock-Up.

In 1961, Carl Reiner cast her in The Dick Van Dyke Show, an acclaimed weekly series based on Reiner's own life and career as a writer for Sid Caesar's television variety show, telling the cast from the outset that it would run no more than five years. The show was produced by Danny Thomas's company, and Thomas himself recommended her. He remembered Mary as "the girl with three names" whom he had turned down earlier.^[11] Moore's energetic comic performances as Van Dyke's character's wife, begun at age 24 (eleven years Van Dyke's junior), made both the actress and her signature tight capri pants extremely popular, and she became internationally famous. When she won an Emmy^[12] award for her portrayal of Laura Petrie, she said, "I know this will never happen again." Mary Tyler Moore recently stated on The Rachael Ray Show that she was actually 23 years old when she first starred on the Dick Van Dyke Show. She had told producers that she was 24 because she heard that initially Dick Van Dyke had stated that she might be too young for the part.

In 1970, after having appeared earlier in a pivotal one-hour musical special called "Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman", Moore and husband Grant Tinker successfully pitched a sitcom centered on Moore to CBS. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a half-hour newsroom sitcom featuring Ed Asner as her gruff boss Lou Grant, a character that would later be spun off into an hour-long dramatic series. The premise of the single working woman's life, alternating during the program between work and home, became a television staple.^[11][13] After six years of ratings in the top 20,^[14] the show slipped to number #39 during its seventh season. Producers argued for its cancellation because of its falling ratings, afraid that the show's legacy might be damaged if it were renewed for another season. To the surprise of the entire cast including Mary Tyler Moore herself, it was announced that they would soon be filming their final episode. After the announcement, the series finished strongly and the final show was the most watched show during the week it aired. The 1977 season would go on to win an Emmy Award^[15] for Outstanding Comedy Series, to add to the awards it had won in 1975 and 1976. The series had become a touchpoint of the Women's Movement because it was one of the first to show, in a serious way, an independent working woman.

After a brief respite, Moore threw herself into a completely different genre. She attempted two unsuccessful series in a row: Mary, which featured David Letterman, Michael Keaton, Swoosie Kurtz and Dick Shawn in the supporting cast and lasted three episodes, which was re-tooled as The Mary Tyler Moore Hour, a backstage show within a show, with Mary portraying a TV star putting on a variety show.^[14] To arouse curiosity and nostalgic feelings, Dick Van Dyke appeared as her guest, but the program was canceled within three months. About this time, she also made a one-off musical/variety special for CBS, titled Mary's Incredible Dream,^[16] which featured John Ritter, among others. It did poorly in the ratings and, according to Moore, was never repeated and will likely never be aired again because of legal problems surrounding the show.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1985–86 season, she returned to CBS in a series titled Mary, which suffered from poor reviews, sagging ratings, and internal strife within the production crew. According to Moore, she asked CBS to pull the show, as she was unhappy with the direction of the program and the producers.^[17] She also starred in the short-lived Annie McGuire in 1988.^[18] In the mid-1990s, she had a cameo and a guest starring role as herself on two episodes of Ellen. She subsequently also guest starred on Ellen DeGeneres's next TV show, The Ellen Show, in 2001. In 2004, Moore reunited with her Dick Van Dyke Show castmates for a reunion "episode" called The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited.^[19]

In August 2005, Moore guest-starred as Christine St. George, a high-strung host of a fictional TV show on three episodes of Fox sitcom That '70s Show. Moore's scenes were shot on the same soundstage where The Mary Tyler Moore Show was filmed in the 1970s. Moore made a guest appearance on the season 2 premiere of Hot in Cleveland, which stars her old co-star Betty White.^[20] This marked the first time that White and Moore had worked together since The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended in 1977.^[21]

Theatre[link]

Moore the Academy Awards in 1988

Moore appeared in several Broadway plays. She starred in Whose Life Is It Anyway with James Naughton, which opened on Broadway at the Royale Theatre on February 24, 1980, and ran for 96 performances, and in Sweet Sue, which opened at the Music Box Theatre (transferred to the Royale Theatre) on Jan. 8, 1988, and ran for 164 performances. She was the star of a new musical version of Breakfast at Tiffany's in December 1966, but the show, titled Holly Golightly, was a notorious flop that closed in previews before opening on Broadway. In reviews of performances in Philadelphia and Boston, critics "murdered" the play in which Moore claimed to be singing with bronchial pneumonia.^[22] During the 1980s, Moore and her production company produced five plays: Noises Off, The Octette Bridge Club, Joe Egg, Benefactors, and Safe Sex.^{[citation needed]} She appeared in previews of the Neil Simon play Rose's Dilemma at the off-Broadway Manhattan Theatre Club in December 2003 but quit the production after receiving a critical letter from Simon instructing her to "learn your lines or get out of my play".^[23] Moore had been using an earpiece on stage to feed her lines to the repeatedly rewritten play.^[24]

Movies[link]

Moore made her film debut in 1961's X-15. She subsequently appeared in a string of 1960s films (after signing an exclusive contract with Universal Pictures), including 1967's Thoroughly Modern Millie with Julie Andrews and 1968's What's So Bad About Feeling Good? with George Peppard, and Don't Just Stand There!.

In 1969, she starred opposite Elvis Presley as a nun in Change of Habit. Moore's future television castmate Ed Asner also appeared in that film (as a cop). After that film's disappointing reviews and reception at the box office, Moore returned to television, and did not appear in another feature film for eleven years. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for 1980's Ordinary People. Other feature film credits include Just Between Friends and Flirting with Disaster.

She has appeared in a number of television movies, including Like Mother, Like Son, Run a Crooked Mile, Heartsounds, The Gin Game (based on the Broadway play; reuniting her with Dick Van Dyke), Mary and Rhoda, Finnegan Begin Again.^{[citation needed]} and Stolen Babies for which she won an Emmy Award in 1993.^[25]

Author[link]

Moore has written two memoirs. The first, After All, released in 1995, in which she acknowledged that she is a recovering alcoholic.^[26] The next, Growing Up Again: Life, Loves, and Oh Yeah, Diabetes, was released on April 1, 2009, and focuses on living with type 1 diabetes (St. Martin's Press; ISBN 0-312-37631-6).^[27]

Personal life[link]

Family[link]

In 1955, at age 18, she married Richard Carleton Meeker^[28] whom Mary described as "the boy next door," and within six weeks was pregnant with her only child, Richard, Jr. (born July 3, 1956). Coincidentally, he was known as "Richie," which was also the name of her TV son on The Dick Van Dyke Show.^[29] Meeker and Moore divorced in 1961.^[30] Moore married Grant Tinker, a CBS executive (later chairman of NBC), in 1962, and in 1970 they formed the television production company MTM Enterprises,^[31] which created and produced the company's first television series, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Moore and Tinker divorced in 1981.^[32] She married Dr. Robert Levine^[33] on November 23, 1983, at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.^[34] They met when her mother was treated by him in New York City on a weekend housecall, after Moore and her mother returned from a visit to the Vatican where they had personal audience with Pope John Paul II.^[35] On October 14, 1980, at the age of 24,^[33] Mary's son Richie died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, accidentally shooting himself in the head while handling a sawed-off shotgun. The gun was later taken off the market because of its "hair trigger".^[36] Just before his death, Moore had secured a job for him in the CBS mailroom.

Charity work[link]

Mary Tyler Moore presents the JDRF's Hero's Award to U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, for his role in securing federal funding for type 1 diabetes research, 2003

In addition to her acting work, Moore is the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International.^[37] In this role, she has used her profile to help raise funds and raise awareness of diabetes mellitus type 1, which she has, almost losing her vision and at least one limb to the disease.

In 2007, in honor of Moore's dedication to the Foundation, JDRF created the "Forever Moore" research initiative which will support JDRF's Academic Research and Development and JDRF's Clinical Development Program. The program works on translating basic research advances into new treatments and technologies for those living with type 1 diabetes.^[38]

She also adopted a Golden Retriever puppy from Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue in Hudson, Massachusetts.^[39] She is an animal rights activist and promoted her cause on the Ellen DeGeneres sitcom Ellen.^[40] She has worked for animal rights for many years.^[41] She has worked with Farm Sanctuary to raise awareness about the cruelty of factory farming and to promote the compassionate treatment of farm animals.^[42]

She is also a co-founder of Broadway Barks, an annual animal adopt-a-thon held in New York City. Moore and friend Bernadette Peters work to make New York City a no-kill city and to promote adopting animals from shelters.^[43]

After her work with multiple cat adoption organizations, she herself has adopted over 132 cats that live with her at her ranch.

In honor of her father, George Tyler Moore, a life-long American Civil War enthusiast, in 1995 Moore donated funds to acquire a historic structure in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, for Shepherd College (now Shepherd University) to be used as a center for Civil War studies. The center, named the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War is housed in the historic Conrad Shindler house (ca. 1795), which is named in honor of her great-great-great-grandfather, who owned the structure from 1815–52.^[44] Moore also contributed to the renovation of the house used as headquarters during 1861–1862 by Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Use of the house had been offered to Jackson by its owner, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Tilghman Moore, commander of the 4th Virginia Infantry and a great-grandfather of Mary Tyler Moore.^[5][45]

Moore supports embryonic stem cell research. When President George W. Bush announced that he would veto the Senate's bill supporting the research, she said, "This is an intelligent human being with a heart, and I don't see how much longer he can deny those aspects of himself."^[46]