Mary Tyler Moore

Moore's phenomenal television success and her private life are here examined affectionately, without the salacious tales common to celebrity bios. Bonderoff tells of her childhood in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, the start of her careerplugging refrigerators on the Ozzie and Harriet showher success on The Dick Van Dyke Show and in the series bearing her name. Moore is portrayed as a wholesome perfectionist who has had numerous personal and professional setbacks (diabetes, two broken marriages, the deaths of her only son and a much younger sister, as well as the failures of two TV shows). The star's recent film and stage career is discussed, and opinions tendered on her three marriages. Quotations from interviews flesh out the portrait.