Tribute To Mary Taylor Moore

By Josh Albarran - January 26, 2017

Mary Tyler Moore started in the sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" on the CBS Television Network from 1970 to 1977. (MTM Productions/CBS)

NEW YORK -- Americans lost an icon in women's television. Mary Tyler Moore (80) passed away Wednesday following an falling health, she was the star (and I mean the star, an first for women on broadcast television) of her CBS sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" aired from 1970 to 1977, produced by her production company MTM Productions at the CBS Studio Center in California.

Moore started in that show as an single woman and an local TV executive in Minneapolis WJM-TV (likely an CBS station, but unrelated to the existing current CBS station there WCCO-TV), severing as an producer for the 6 o'clock news and living an normal life even thought her funny moments entertain millions of viewers throughout the show's run. Her career on television began in an series of Hotpoint commercials in the 1950s before becoming an co-star with the legendary Dick Van Dyke on The Dick Van Dyke Show on the CBS Television Network in the 1960s.

Actor Dick Van Dyke react to the passing of Mary Taylor Moore on CBS This Morning, January 26, 2017.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show spun off to several television spin-off series that continue the legacy of the most-watched successful sitcom, all of them produced by MTM Productions until Moore sold the company to TVS Entertainment in 1988 and then to Pat Robertson's International Family Entertainment (an separate profit company from his non-profit organization the Christian Broadcasting Network) before Fox brought MTM in 1997 (its library including all rights to the Mary Tyler Moore Show is one of the few proprieties Fox maintain to this day following the sale of Fox Family Worldwide to The Walt Disney Company in 2001).

Mary Tyler Moore with late CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite on the March 1978 issue of TV Guide promoting CBS's 50th Anniversary. (TV Guide)

Moore has been an long-time member of the CBS family, Les Moonves, Chairman and CEO of the CBS Corporation was one of the many who send condolences that MTM "was a once-in-a-generation talent" and 'CBS has lost one of the very best to ever grace our airwaves and our industry has lost a true legend and friend."

Mary Tyler Moore will be remembered by both CBS viewers and her fans past, present and future for all generations to come. Hats off to MTM or should we say in just one word, Mary.

Thank You Mary Tyler Moore.
(MTM Productions/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment)