Plot Synopsis

Directed by James Adolphus and produced by Lena Waithe, Debra Martin Chase, and Ben Selkow, BEING MARY TYLER MOORE is a two-hour documentary that chronicles screen icon Mary Tyler Moore, whose storied career spanned 60 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 TH 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. In the last 35 years of her life, Moore went through a transformative period of self-discovery, moving to New York City, finding true love, and going on to become an impactful global advocate for diabetes research. BEING MARY TYLER MOORE documents the life of a complex artist who shifted the dynamics of how women were portrayed on television, had far-reaching influence on the business through her own production company, and helped affect great change through her work as International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Lending their voices to the film 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.

BEING MARY TYLER MOORE premiered on Friday, May 26, 2023 from 8-10pm on HBO and earlier in the day on Max. The film made its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Festival.