美国国家公共电台 NPR Mary Tyler Moore: On Her Own, Single And Singular

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: 

Americans said goodbye yesterday to Mary Tyler Moore, who died yesterday at the age of 80. She won seven Emmy Awards for her work on TV, but that number doesn't quite describe her place in the culture. She played characters to whom many women especially related and admired. Here's our pop culture correspondent Linda Holmes.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVE IS ALL AROUND")

SONNY CURTIS: (Singing) Who can turn the world on with her smile?

LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE¹: Mary Tyler Moore wasn't just beloved, she was the kind of beloved where they build you a statue. Moore's is in Minneapolis, where her best known character Mary Richards of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" worked for the fictional² television station WJM. She'd already won two Emmys playing Laura Petrie on "The Dick Van Dyke³ Show," but Moore cemented her icon⁴ status when Mary Richards walked into that job interview, even if she got off to a rough start with Lou Grant, her soon-to-be boss, who kept a bottle of whiskey in his desk.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW")

EDWARD ASNER: (As Lou Grant) Look, Miss, I was just about to have a drink, and I wouldn't mind some company. Want one?

MARY TYLER MOORE: (As Mary Richards) Oh, no thank you.

ASNER: (As Lou Grant) I said I wouldn't mind some company.

MOORE: (As Mary Richards) Well, all right, I'll have a Brandy Alexander.

(LAUGHTER)

HOLMES: Mary Richards was not TV's first working woman or its first woman on her own. But before Mary, if you saw a woman without a partner at the center of a TV comedy, she was probably a widow like Diahann Carroll's single mom on "Julia" or Lucille Ball on her later show "The Lucy Show." Mary didn't have a living husband, a dead husband, an ex-husband or even a permanent boyfriend like Marlo Thomas did on "That Girl." It wasn't that she didn't want one. Jennifer Keishin Armstrong wrote "Mary And Lou And Rhoda And Ted," a history of the show, and in 2013 she told NPR how Mary stayed single for so long.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

JENNIFER KEISHIN ARMSTRONG: They tried several times. There were dating episodes, and a couple guys lasted more than one episode - very few, but a couple. I mean, it's sort of touching⁵. They were like, no one was good enough for her.

HOLMES: Mary may not have found that exactly right guy, but she did have an apartment, a job, friends and a sex life. In fact, she was on birth control, as the audience learned in November, 1972, when Mary's mother issued a reminder⁶ to her father and Mary accidentally answered, too.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, ""THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW"")

NANETTE FABRAY: (As Dottie Richards) Don't forget to take your pill.

BILL QUINN: (As Walter Richards) I won't.

MOORE: (As Mary Richards) I won't.

(LAUGHTER)

HOLMES: Comedies about single women with all kinds of lives would become staples⁷ of both broadcast and cable - "Laverne & Shirley," "Murphy Brown," "Living Single," "Sex And The City," and now "Girls" and "Insecure" - but Mary and her best friend Rhoda were there first. Mary had bad dates before Rachel and Monica on "Friends" did. Mary had to get the show on the air before Liz Lemon on "30 Rock" did, and Mary struggled with a gruff but loving boss before Leslie Knope on "Parks And Recreation" did. I talked with Rachel Bloom, the star and co-creator of The CW's "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." She told me how watching "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in reruns in the '90s really influenced her.

RACHEL BLOOM: The idea of someone being a funny ingenue, and that she was funny as well as the people around her, and that it was a woman cracking jokes, not just, like, a woman being the straight man for dudes cracking jokes.

HOLMES: Women mattered behind the scenes of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" too, they had roles as writers and directors, and Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker set up MTM Enterprises to produce the show. You might remember the logo with a mewing cat where the MGM lion would have been, that company produced not just "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Rhoda" and "Lou Grant," but "The Bob Newhart Show," "WKRP In Cincinnati," "Hill Street Blues⁸" and "St. Elsewhere." Minneapolis' Mary Tyler Moore statue was moved indoors in 2015 away from its home on the outdoor Nicollet Mall to make way for construction, but later this year it's scheduled to return, and once again, tourists will copy Mary Tyler Moore's pose and throw their hats in the air. Linda Holmes, NPR News.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

3 dyke   

n.堤，水坝，排水沟

参考例句：

• If one sheep leap over the dyke,all the rest will follow.一只羊跳过沟，其余的羊也跟着跳。
• One ant-hole may cause the collapse of a thousand-li dyke.千里长堤，溃于蚁穴。

4 icon   

n.偶像，崇拜的对象，画像

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• Click on this icon to align or justify text.点击这个图标使文本排齐。

5 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

6 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

7 staples   

n.（某国的）主要产品( staple的名词复数 )；钉书钉；U 形钉；主要部份v.用钉书钉钉住( staple的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The anvil onto which the staples are pressed was not assemble correctly. 订书机上的铁砧安装错位。 来自辞典例句
• I'm trying to make an analysis of the staples of his talk. 我在试行分析他的谈话的要旨。 来自辞典例句

8 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。