Mary Tyler Moore holds a special place in people's hearts. She is a symbol of female independence and strength, both in her work and personal life.

Moore was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Southern California. Beginning the day after high school graduation, she was cast as Happy Hotpoint, the elfin logo for Hotpoint appliances, on The Ozzie and Harriet television show. A series of guest roles followed her debut on hit series of the late '50's.

From 1961 to 1966, Moore portrayed Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, a role that earned her two Emmy Awards. During the seventies, The Mary Tyler Moore Show became one of the most acclaimed series in television history, earning more Emmy's than any other show-including three for Moore as Best Actress and two Golden Globes.

During the years after The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore really began to show audiences her emotional range. The heartbreaking accuracy of her portrayal of a woman battling breast cancer in First You Cry earned an Emmy nomination for Best Actress in a Drama. A year later, her triumphant dramatic debut on Broadway in Whose Life is it Anyway? As a hospitalized quadriplegic fighting for control of her own destiny, captured a special Tony award.

But it was in Robert Redford's Ordinary People (1980) that Moore revealed the power of her dramatic ability---a performance that earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress as well as adding a third Golden Globe Award to her collection. In 1981, Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals (the nation's oldest undergraduate dramatic organization) honored Ms. Moore with their "Woman of the Year" award.

In 1988, Moore portrayed Mary Todd Lincoln in the NBC-TV mini-series Gore Vidal's Lincoln, again earning critical praise and still another Emmy nomination for Ms. Moore. In 1993, she received a record seventh Emmy Award for her role as Georgia Tann in Lifetime's original production of Stolen Babies. The following year Ms. Moore starred in the Family Channel's Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden, which captured the highest A.C. Neilsen rating for an original movie and the largest household audience ever for the network. She was the shocking mother in the highly praised comedy film Flirting with Disaster.

In November of 1995, G.P. Putnam's Sons published her best-selling autobiography, After All. Written entirely on her own, After All reveal the triumphs, struggles, and her own comedic overview of television film and stage.

She is currently in pre-production on Mary and Rhoda, a movie for ABC, which will air in February of 2000.

Moore is the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, a position she has held since 1985. During her tenure of JDF has grown to become the world's largest not-for-profit funder of diabetes research. Moore's compassion is further evidenced by her active involvement with several animal welfare organizations including FIDO, the ASPCA, Guidedogs for the Blind, and several rescue organizations. Moore and her husband, Dr. S. Robert Levine, fund scholarship programs in the arts and academics.

They make a home in Manhattan as well as upstate New York with their dogs, horses and goats.

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