MARY TYLER MOORE

26 Jan

(29 December 1936 - 25 January 2017)

The American actress Mary Tyler Moore began her career as a dancer and her first TV appearance was in a Hotpoint commercial during the popular show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in 1952 with the real-life Nelson family. Umpteen more television shows ensued until she made a break for films with X-15 (1961), a Cold War space drama. Then came 158 episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show as the ditsy wife of Van Dyke’s scriptwriter. The film musical Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) with Julie Andrews might have made her a movie star but ensuing film roles, including Change of Habit with Elvis Presley, were nothing great. Back on TV she was in Phyllis, then Rhoda, and her own show, playing the same character, Mary Richards in all three. Ordinary People (1980) was the film that showed her at her dramatic best and she was nominated for an Oscar. This was followed by Six Weeks and Just Between Friends before she returned to TV for the Lincoln mini-series playing Mary (who else?) and in many other series and TV movies. Her last film was Against the Current (2010), and her final TV appearance was on Hot in Cleveland (2013). On stage she was in an ill-fated musical of Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Richard Chamberlain in 1967, but she won six Emmy Awards for her TV work and Tony Awards for Whose Life Is It Anyway? and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. She was married three times and had a son, Richie, who died in 1980. Her own company MTM Enterprises made many successful TV shows.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

MARY TYLER MOORE

ROBERT ELLIS MILLER

MIGUEL FERRER