A new documentary titled BEING MARY TYLER MOORE, is heading to HBO Max this May. Directed by James Adolphus (“Soul of a Nation”) and produced by Lena Waithe (“A Thousand and One”), Debra Martin Chase (“Harriet”), and Ben Selkow (HBO’s “Q: Into The Storm”), with unprecedented access to Mary Tyler Moore’s vast archive, BEING MARY TYLER MOORE chronicles the screen icon whose storied career spanned sixty years. Weaving Moore’s personal narrative with the beats of her professional accomplishments, the film highlights her groundbreaking roles and the indelible impact she had on generations of women who came after her.
Moore’s career broke boundaries in different eras, most notably in her comedic roles as Laura Petrie in the ‘60s sitcom, “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and as single career woman Mary Richards on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in the ‘70s, both of which put her at the forefront of female representation on television and cemented her as a role model for independent working women. Acknowledging that much of herself was woven into her sunny characters, she nevertheless struggled behind the scenes, dealing privately with immeasurable tragedy in her personal life, some of which was echoed in her portrayal of a grieving mother in the 1980 film “Ordinary People,” for which she was nominated for an Academy Award.
Adding to the movie are family members, colleagues and those whose lives Mary Tyler Moore impacted including directors Rob Reiner, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and Jim Burrows, actors Ed Asner, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lena Waithe, Phylicia Rashad, Bernadette Peters, and Joel Grey, writers and producers Allan Burns, James L. Brooks, Norman Lear, Debra Martin Chase, Treva Silverman, Susan Silver, and Moore’s husband, Dr. S. Robert Levine.
The movie will be featured at South By Southwest 2023.
