Local actors share stories of working with Mary Tyler Moore
Actors who live in the Palm Springs area and worked with the late Mary Tyler Moore are mourning the loss of an entertainment icon.
Moore passed away Wednesday at the age of 80 from cardiopulmonary arrest after she had contracted pneumonia.
Wesley Eure, who you may remember as Will from the 1970s television show “Land of the Lost,” remembers working with Moore in the 1990s doing voice-over work for a cruise line.
“So she gets the copy, and the sound guy is there, and she does the take and it’s perfect. So I say, ‘Ms. Moore, with a few more acting lessons you can have a career in this business,’ and she starts howling,” said Eure.
Moore’s extensive and groundbreaking career covered decades of film and television as an actress, writer and producer.
She was a true superstar.
At a 50th anniversary celebration for the television show “Family Affair” at the Camelot theaters in Palm Springs, News Channel 3’s Joe Galli talked with actor Stanley Livingston. He worked with Moore in the 1961 film “X-15.” Livingston was just a child at the time.
“I remember her being there and watching her film and who knew it was some of her early work,” Livingston said.
That same year Moore was the debut of “The Dick Van Dike Show,” which helped skyrocket Moore’s career.
“There was a time at least for me when they said women didn’t belong in comedy. They could write in drama but not comedy, and she dispelled that myth,” said Irma Kalish, a writer on “Family Affair.”
“She was a trailblazer for women, and I not only admired her work as an actress, but to go forward and be a producer of her own show, which was really unheard of at the time, I think it’s phenomenal,” said Kathy Garver, who played Cissy Davis on “Family Affair.”
Throughout her life, Moore battled alcoholism and received treatment at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage.
Moore will forever be known as a pioneer for women in the entertainment industry, proving that glass ceilings can always be shattered by strong, determined, independent women.
