Lou: I hate spunk.

Well, gosh darn it,  Mary Tyler Moore died.  This makes me sad.  Truly.

I loved Mary Tyler Moore.  Actually, I didn’t know her.  I never even met her.  But I sure did like her persona on the screen.  And her passing feels like an old friend has gone.  So strange, how that works with people we only know through stage, screen, song, and such.

The show, the show.  The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  It was golden.  That was really the one that put her career through the roof.

She was born in Brooklyn, NY on December 29, 1936.  But it must have been apparent to her, early, that she wanted to be in show business, somehow.  It all started when she was still a teenager.  She bumped around at the beginning of her career.  But then she became good old Laura Petrie, the wife of Dick Van Dyke on the DVD Show.  That was pretty good too, I’ll tell you.  1961 is when that started.

Good ol’ Mary got her first big movie role in 1967.  It was Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Hey. We have a goose named Millie.  She is giving big eggs right now, but that is a different story.

Anyway, I wonder what it was like… with Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore on the same set?  I wonder if they got along… or if it was Diva City.  Hmmm.  I’d like to think Mary Poppins and Mary T shared a spoon full of sugar every now and again.

But the big role was Mary Richards.  The new girl at WJM-TV.  There to make her way on her own.  The casting was perfect, from Betty White, to Ed Asner, Gavin McLeod, to Ted Knight. They were hilarious.

Gawd.  When Chuckles the Clown died, I nearly keeled over from laughing.  I wonder if I watched it today, if I would think it as funny.  Hulu.  Here I come.

At any rate, her presence on TV brought a whole lot of smiles to a whole lot of people.  TV. The great escape.  For those 30 minutes, people could be in another place, another time.  They could settle into sharing in the common hilarity of being human.  They could share in the struggles, the dilemmas, the screw-ups, the inside jokes, and the bond of friendship to bring them all through.

When someone whose spirit seems so whole, it transcends through the screen, I think.  I don’t know what she was like in “real” life, but she sure seemed like a kind, warm and caring person to me.

Perhaps….  her theme song said it best.

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
… …. You’re gonna make it after all.

And she did.

We’ll miss you Mare.  You had spunk.