Listening To The Monkees With Fresh Ears, 50 Years Later

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, editor of the website TV Worth Watching, sitting in for Terry Gross. Mary Tyler Moore died Wednesday at age 80, and many radio and television programs have been offering salutes and appreciations ever since. Today, it's our turn. We're going to replay a 1995 interview Mary Tyler Moore did with Terry Gross back when the star of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" had just released her memoir. But first, an appreciation from my perspective as a TV critic. Mary Tyler Moore managed to star in one of the best and smartest comedies of the decade in two different decades.

In the 1960s, when almost all of the situation comedies were dumbed-down fantasy shows like "My Mother The Car," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" was a singularly modern and believable comedy about, in part, a loving husband and wife. In the 1970s, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was a subtle but undeniably feminist role model; as single working women on TV go, a direct ancestor of such later series as HBO's "Sex And The City" and "Girls."

But what I loved most about the roles of New Rochelle housewife Laura Petrie and Minneapolis TV producer Mary Richards wasn't what they represented or how they were written but what Mary Tyler Moore brought to them. As an actress, she brought vitality, sexuality and an awful lot of stubbornness and strength. Whatever part she played, Mr. Grant was right. She had spunk. Here she is in a flashback sequence on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," angrily lashing back at Rob after he jilts her at the altar. He'd gotten in an accident on the way to the wedding, but she doesn't know that yet.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW")

DICK VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Honey, you promised you'd stay and listen to me.

MARY TYLER MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) And you promised you'd marry me. Where were you?

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) That's what I want to explain.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) I've never been so humiliated in my whole life. Everybody was here. Even my Aunt Mildred was here. She came all the way from Ohio.

(LAUGHTER)

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Oh, honey, please, I hate to see you cry like this.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Well, it's the only way I know how to cry.

BIANCULLI: Her defiance and her humor also were on display in another flashback sequence when Rob and Laura have just come back from the hospital with their new baby. Rob suspects the hospital accidentally switched infants, giving their kid to another couple on the maternity ward named Peters.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW")

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Our baby is probably just as cute as that one is.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Will you stop? Where did you ever get such a crazy idea?

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) At the hospital. That's where we got it.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) We got the wrong flowers.

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) You forgot about the blueberry tarts and the rice pudding pretty fast, did you, not to mention dried figs.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Dried - Rob, this is our baby and that's all there is to it.

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Honey, he doesn't even look like us.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Rob.

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) You see.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) All I see is our baby with a blue foot.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Rob.

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Ink.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) How did it get there?

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Jerry and I put it on.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Why?

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) We were just running a series of tests.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Rob, there are no series of tests in the world that are going to convince me that is not our baby.

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Oh, honey, I don't blame you. You can't face the facts.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOORBELL RINGING)

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Poor kid.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Oh, Rob.

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Well, honey, that's probably the Peters now. Brace yourself.

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) Rob, nobody is taking this baby. Do you hear me? Nobody.

VAN DYKE: (As Rob Petrie) Laura, I think it'd be better if you went to your room. I can handle it.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: (As Laura Petrie) I am staying right here.

BIANCULLI: And then, from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," there's one of the best pieces of acting she ever did and without hardly any dialogue. It's at the funeral of a colleague, the children's show TV host known as Chuckles the Clown. Mary had spent most of the episode berating her colleagues for making tasteless jokes all week at the weird way the clown died. If you don't know, find the episode, which is called Chuckles Bites The Dust. She doesn't find their humor the least bit funny, but at the service itself, as the reverend - played by John Harkins - gives his eulogy for Chuckles, Mary - and Mary alone - starts giggling and laughing until the reverend singles her out. It's hilarious, and it's all built on character.

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

JOHN HARKINS: (As Reverend Burns) Excuse me, young lady.

(LAUGHTER)

HARKINS: (As Reverend Burns) Yes, you, would you stand up please?

(LAUGHTER)

HARKINS: (As Reverend Burns) Please, please, won't you? You feel like laughing, don't you?

MOORE: (As Mary Richards, laughter).

(LAUGHTER)

HARKINS: (As Reverend Burns) Don't try to hold it back. Go ahead. Laugh out loud. Don't you see? Nothing would have made Chuckles happier. He lived to make people laugh. Tears were offensive to him, deeply offensive. He hated to see people cry.

(LAUGHTER)

HARKINS: (As Reverend Burns) So go ahead, my dear, laugh for Chuckles.

MOORE: (As Mary Richards, laughter).

BIANCULLI: Nothing else Mary Tyler Moore did in her career matched the popularity and the impact of those two sitcom roles. But to embody a decade, a gender and a generation not once but twice is plenty for any one lifetime. Terry Gross spoke with Mary Tyler Moore in 1995. She asked her about her first big break, playing the Happy Hotpoint elf for Hotpoint appliance commercials broadcast during "The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet" TV show.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

MOORE: Happy Hotpoint was the logo of Hotpoint appliances come to life, an elf, a little figure with a shock of blond hair protruding from her little gray pixie cap that also had ears on it. But I was Happy Hotpoint, and I would, in these commercials, be superimposed on ice cube trays, skating, popping out of the washing machine, speaking to Harriet Nelson and saying things like, hi, Harriet, aren't you glad you use Hotpoint appliances? Except my voice was higher then, so it sounded a lot more pixie-ish (ph) than it does now.

What had happened was that at that time, and this was immediately after graduating from high school, I also got married immediately after graduating from high school. And about a month after that, I was pregnant, and these commercials were almost impossible to do anymore because I had my breasts bound down to begin with even before I was pregnant because pixies are supposedly of neuter gender. And to try to do that after I was even 1 month along and certainly into two and three was impossible, and so we had to stop. And I think they just went to straight commercials after that. And I went on to happily have my baby a few months after that.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

Well, after you had your baby, you were the voice of the woman in the answering service for the TV detective Richard Diamond.

MOORE: Right. That was played by David Janssen, and it was - I guess it had started on radio. And one of the successful elements of it was a character called Sam - short for Samantha - who was the answering service woman who took Richard Diamond's telephone messages. This was, of course, predating answering machines, and he would check in with me two or three times every episode. And I would answer in the sexiest imaginable voice, hi, Mr. D., I have some messages for you. And nobody ever saw Sam. You were allowed to imagine her to be your idea, your fantasy of the most gorgeous creature ever, certainly far from the reality of Mary Tyler Moore who, at the time, was a fast 23 or 22 years old freckle-faced, all-American, girl-next-door type.

GROSS: Now, let me jump ahead to "The Dick Van Dyke Show." What were you told about the character of Laura?

MOORE: Just that she was going to be a wife, a television wife. And that really had its classical parameters and dimensions, and they were established and they hardly ever varied, except as to whether or not the wife was the star of the show, in which case she was the funny one. Or if she were the straight man for the male star and she was then totally supportive. But all these wives were kind of obedient and, you know, a representative of the vows to love, honor and obey. They hardly varied from that. And with Carl Reiner's character the way she was written, Laura actually had opinions of her own. And while she was asserting herself, she also didn't make Dick Van Dyke look like a dummy. It was a matter of two people. I mean, society's expectations at that point still said, hey, wait a minute, lady. You only go so far here.

But I think we broke new ground. And that was helped by my insistence on wearing pants, you know, jeans and capri pants at the time because I said, I've seen all the other actresses, and they're always running the vacuum in these little flowered frocks with high heels on. And I don't do that, and I don't know any of my friends who do that, so why don't we try to make this real? And I'll dress on the show the way I do in real life.

GROSS: But it wasn't that easy. The sponsors were afraid you'd look brazen.

MOORE: Right. They pointed specifically to - they used the term cupping under. And I can only assume that that meant, you know, my seat, that there was a little too much definition. And so they allowed me to continue to wear them in one episode - one scene per episode and only after we checked to make sure that there was as little cupping under as possible. But...

GROSS: Cupping under referring to the fit of your pants.

MOORE: The fit of the pants, yes.

GROSS: On your behind.

MOORE: On my behind, right. But within a few weeks we were sneaking them into a few other scenes in every episode. And they were definitely cupping under. And everyone thought it was great.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: And the funny thing is, you know, women liked me. They were not envious of the fact that their husbands had a crush on me. It was OK with them. They were the first to - you know, when I would meet people, they'd say, my husband loves you so much and he thinks you're so sexy. And this was - it was an odd thing because they were also able to identify with me as a friend, as a girlfriend. There was no resentment and no fear.

GROSS: Yeah. Well, I think that that speaks so well for the character and your portrayal of her. Why capri pants? Why not...

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Why not longer pants?

MOORE: There was a store in Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills called Jax, J-A-X. And a man named Jack Hanson owned it, and it's now no longer there. And he designed these trousers. And they came in all fabrics and all price ranges from cotton to the finest moire silks. And I adored these pants. I loved them. I lusted after them. And I could just barely afford the cotton ones. But when I had a paycheck and it was on a regular basis from, you know, dancing in the chorus, I would make sure that I added another pair of pants to my wardrobe. And those were the design that I wore, along with several hundred other young women who shopped in Beverly Hills then.

BIANCULLI: Mary Tyler Moore speaking to Terry Gross in 1995. We'll continue their conversation and our salute to Mary Tyler Moore after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF B.J. THOMAS SONG, "RAINDROPS KEEP FALLING ON MY HEAD")

BIANCULLI: We're remembering Mary Tyler Moore, who died Wednesday at age 80. Terry Gross spoke with her in 1995, when the actress had just published her memoir.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

GROSS: I have a colleague here who said, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" made me who I am today - single.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: And I thought that was particularly funny because, you know, all those years you were playing Mary Tyler Moore you had no idea what it was like to be single. You got married as soon as you got out of high school. You divorced, but you were only single for about six months before marrying Grant Tinker.

MOORE: That's right. Boy, you've read the book, haven't you?

GROSS: Yes.

MOORE: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: So really you'd never lived that kind of single life.

MOORE: No, I hadn't. And when Grant and I finally ended our marriage and I went to New York to do a Broadway play, "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" I decided to stay in New York and try to capture my life for myself. I had never been on my own. I had never experienced any of the situations that Mary Richards had lived for the rest of the world every week.

And I set about to make that happen for myself. I dated. I made friends. I had a little apartment. I did my own shopping and schlepped my own clothes to the dry cleaner and back and the laundry and all of that stuff. And I sort of generally played house, but in real life.

GROSS: Now, how did you come up with the voice to say, oh, Rob?

MOORE: (Laughter) I don't know. I guess it began with the cry. The first time I cried was the episode in which Laura bleaches her hair blonde, looks in the mirror and with her friend Millie's help decides she looks more like Harpo Marx than what her goal had been. And so she quickly tries to dye it back before Rob gets home from work. Now, this is a real stretch of the imagination. She decides to dye one half of her head back, not being able to get the other half done before Dick walks in the door. And so she greets him half blonde, half brunette and sobbing.

And I had always been a big fan of Nanette Fabray, who worked with Carl Reiner and Sid Caesar on the "Show Of Shows," and I loved her humor. I loved the way she cried. And so when I was called upon to bring forth the tears in my scene, I'm not sure how much of it was out-and-out stolen from Miss Fabray and how much of it was just a matter of influence.

But there was definitely a cracking in the voice and an inability to maintain a tone and a certain amount of verbal yodeling that took place. And from that came, oh, Rob (laughter).

GROSS: Did you do a lot of rehearsing with Dick Van Dyke, or did you just have to do it minutes before the actual broadcast?

MOORE: Oh, the whole show was done in what they call multiple-camera technique. It's still done today. But back then, we were maybe the sixth or seventh show to use the technique. It began with Joan Davis - not Lucille Ball, as everyone thinks. Joan Davis did a show called "I Married Joan."

GROSS: (Singing) What a girl, what a world, what a life.

MOORE: Hey, good for you.

GROSS: (Laughter).

MOORE: And then Lucy and several other shows followed. But in that show it's a little like doing theater that's captured on film. You rehearse for five days. And then on the evening of the fifth day, the audience comes in and the cameras, having blocked their moves and yours lined up with them, you film it from top to bottom in continuity.

So during those five days, it was - at least the first three days it was very much a matter of rehearse and contribute and attempt things and not be afraid to fail, to make a fool of yourself. Just pick yourself up. And if it didn't happen this time, then the next time you experiment maybe it will. It was a wonderfully supportive, creative environment.

And Dick Van Dyke was the most generous and supportive human being that I have ever worked with. And he very strongly influenced my life and my standards when I went out on my own later on.

GROSS: Oh, I have another question about Laura Petrie's look.

MOORE: Yeah?

GROSS: Laura wore a flip.

MOORE: (Laughter).

GROSS: A perfect little flip.

MOORE: Yes.

GROSS: Whose idea was the flip, and how were you wearing your hair in real life at the time?

MOORE: In real life, I was wearing it in a flip. But it wasn't quite as back-combed and lacquered as it was on the show. I mean, that thing had so much hair spray on it, you could hang clothes from it.

GROSS: When you say that thing, was it your hair, or was it a wig?

MOORE: Yeah. It was my hair. But it was quite thoroughly sprayed and done by somebody else. But my - in person in between shows, that was the way I wore it. It was just a little limper.

GROSS: Let's talk about "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," a show which I still love to watch. I'm so glad that Nick at Nite (laughter) carries the shows. I still love to watch "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "Mary Tyler Moore." "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" got started because CBS wanted to build a series around you. And you and Grant Tinker hired people to, you know, write - come up with the idea, write a series. What was the original premise?

MOORE: The original premise was not too different from the one that we ended up pursuing. But I was to be divorced from a doctor. And rather than having - as we ended up doing - having me live with this doctor through medical school and internship and residency and then been dumped, CBS felt that having been divorced was unacceptable from a societal point of view - that people would see nothing humorous in divorce. How could you possibly laugh at a woman who had a broken marriage in her past? And not only that - but, my God, they would think you were divorced from Dick Van Dyke, the world's most wonderful, adorable person.

GROSS: That's so silly.

MOORE: Yeah. And instead, what's so odd from a morality point of view is that they found it acceptable that I had lived with this doctor, never married him. And then the relationship broke up. And I went off to start my new life. So I don't know. Morality, I guess, is a very personal thing.

BIANCULLI: Mary Tyler Moore speaking with Terry Gross in 1995. We'll continue their conversation after a short break. But first, a musical selection from one of Moore's lesser-known TV shows. In 1976, a year before "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" ended and four years before she starred in the movie "Ordinary People," Mary Tyler Moore starred in an ambitious, surrealistic variety special. It was called "Mary's Incredible Dream."

And one of its musical numbers was her dressed up as an elderly actress near the end of her career, singing one of Stephen Sondheim's showstoppers from the Broadway musical "Follies," "I'm Still Here." It was an unexpected choice for someone at the peak of her popularity on primetime television. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MARY'S INCREDIBLE DREAM")

MOORE: (As Woman) Good times, bum times - I've seen them all. And, my dear, I'm still here. Plush velvet sometimes - sometimes just pretzels and beer. But I'm here. I've stuffed the dailies in my shoes, strummed ukuleles, sung the blues, seen all my dreams disappear. But I'm here. I've slept in shanties, guest of the WPA. But I'm here. Danced in my scanties - three bucks a night was the pay. But I'm here.

(Singing) I've stood on bread lines with the best, watched while the headlines did the rest. In the Depression, was I depressed? Nowhere near. I met a big financier, and I'm here. I've gotten through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover. Gee, that was fun and a half. When you've been through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover...

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, in for Terry Gross, back with more of our salute to Mary Tyler Moore, who died Wednesday at age 80. Terry interviewed Mary Tyler Moore in 1995. We'll pick up with Terry asking about the character of Ted Baxter, the pompous and clueless TV newscaster played by Ted Knight in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

GROSS: The character of Ted Baxter was originally conceived as being someone of your age.

MOORE: Right.

GROSS: And there might be some, like, romantic attraction between you?

MOORE: Exactly. He was probably going to be tall, dark and handsome. And instead, what walked through the door was Ted Knight, short, white-haired and handsome, yes, but not what you'd call a love interest. But the writers - the writer-producers, Jim and Allan, were so open, and I think that's an important part of being a successful artist is being open to new ideas and input. And they saw this man, and they began to think potential. All right, so it isn't our original idea but oh, wow, look and feel and salivate over all the juicy stories we could do in another direction. And that's what happened, and they cast Ted.

GROSS: What won them over? Was that big, pretentious voice part of it (laughter)?

MOORE: You know, there was another thing that won them over. It wasn't just the fact that he was pomposity to the nth degree but that there was a vulnerability and a sweetness to Ted. We found out later that Ted, who was a more out of work than in work actor, had gone out and bought himself a blue blazer and a crest and had it sewn on the pocket so that he would look the part. And everybody just thought that was, you know, real throat-clenching stuff. And you know, if there had been any doubt about whether or not he was the right one, that clinched it.

GROSS: You write in your book that later into the series, Ted Knight wept because people thought he was really stupid.

MOORE: Yeah.

GROSS: They confused him so much with the character.

MOORE: Yes. I don't remember exactly what year it was. I think it might have been the second year or the - maybe no. I think it was the first year. And he was so successful. I mean, he was a unique character. No one had ever seen anybody like him as a continuing role in a series. And people were mistaking him for the character he played, which is so often true for those of us in television. And they would - and of course both their - the first name was the same Ted, Ted. And they were calling him stupid and, oh, you're the funniest dumbbell we ever met. And, boy, are you dumb and stupid, and somebody called him a dumb schmuck. And he came in to Jim Brooks and Allan Burns' office. Actually it was only Allan in the office this day. And he was unable to speak.

He was just sobbing, and apparently it had just spilled over at that particular moment. He said, I can't go on, I can't do this. I am a dignified man. I have standards, and I am proud and I'm well-read and everybody thinks I'm stupid. And so Allan pulled out all the stops and reminded him of all the great clowns in history who were cerebral and admired and who did great works in life by not only the good works themselves but by making fools of themselves by pratfalling, by doing all the dumb things that make people think you're dumb. And he was pretty much convinced and on his way out of the door when Jim Brooks came in and said, ah, Ted, Ted, Ted, Ted, the world's favorite schmuck.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Oops.

MOORE: But he had a sense of humor about it, and he got it out of his system. I think that's all he needed to do. I think, you know, that's probably all a lot of us need to do on many occasions of frustration is just say it, get it out and sort of let the steam out, you know? Let the top of the kettle off for a minute.

GROSS: I think one of the real famous moments in television openings, you know, one of the famous freeze-frames is you throwing your hat in the air (laughter) in the opening of the show with the jingle underneath. Do you remember that moment?

MOORE: Oh, do I. It was freezing cold. It was in Minneapolis in January, I think, or February. And we didn't know what we were doing. We were just there to grab a lot of footage that shows a young woman's exuberance being in a new city, looking around, gazing at the sights. And I had in my hand a hat, a little beret that my aunt had given me for Christmas. And I had packed that along with whatever other warm things that I had, which weren't too many because I was a Californian, to go to Minneapolis to do these film spots. And Jim Brooks said, oh, I have a good idea, Mary. Take that hat, put it on your head and now run into the intersection. And it'll be all right. We'll watch for cars. And (laughter) throw it up in the air as if to say this is my town and I'm celebrating my life that is taking place. And I did it and luckily, magically, wasn't hit by a car, although I got some pretty strange looks. And in fact, in - I guess it must be in every episode you can see this one woman in the background who looks at me as if not only am I the world's strangest person but that she would like to personally lock me up.

GROSS: (Laughter).

MOORE: But it's interesting, isn't it, that something that becomes burned in people's impressions and memories can happen so happenstancely (ph) out of nowhere. It wasn't written. It was just a spur-of-the-moment idea.

GROSS: So that traffic was the real thing.

MOORE: Oh, yeah, it was. And it's a good thing I didn't have to speak any lines because my lips weren't working it was so cold. I literally could not form words.

BIANCULLI: Mary Tyler Moore speaking to Terry Gross in 1995. We'll continue their conversation and our salute to Mary Tyler Moore after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JAKE SHIMABUKURO'S "143 2011")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering Mary Tyler Moore, who died Wednesday at age 80. Terry Gross spoke with her in 1995 when the actress had just published her memoir.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

GROSS: I'm interested in hearing a little bit about your own family when you were growing up since, after all, you know, you portrayed one of the most famous couples on television on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and then had a wonderful family of friends and colleagues...

MOORE: Yes.

GROSS: ...On "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." When you were growing up, your own family was probably what we'd now call dysfunctional.

MOORE: Yeah. Yeah. I suppose so. It's an overused phrase, and I wish we could be a little more specific about it.

GROSS: I agree.

MOORE: My - no, and I didn't mean to criticize you for that (laughter).

GROSS: No, no, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, I didn't take it that way (laughter).

MOORE: My mother and father were very much the couple that Grant Tinker and I became. They say that you do follow the patterns that you grow up in, and this was certainly true in my case - WASP, repressed, unable to deal with things that are uncomfortable, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, not discussing anything that's ugly or unpleasant and just muddling through.

A little of Jeff (ph) - Beth Jarrett in "Ordinary People" came from those people, from myself. And I emulated that with Grant Tinker. My father is very well educated, intellectual, a lover of classical music and classical literature. My - my mother was an English major. And everything was just perfect in that house, but nobody was talking to anybody.

GROSS: Well, another thing that was less than perfect was your mother drank.

MOORE: My mother was an alcoholic, as I was to become. Her alcoholism took another form from mine. She would, by the dint of determination, be sober for months at a time and then be unable to continue. And all of the problems that had been building up and she had been stuffing under the rug of her emotions would burst forth, and she would start drinking in the day. And she would not stop until somebody found the bottle and took it away and pretty much held her captive in the house until she sobered up and we were able to plead with her to stop. And then she would try again.

Back then, nobody knew what we know about alcoholism today and the kind of counseling it takes and the kind of sharing and support that is needed to get through this, to break this cycle. They feel now - I think most scientists agree that there is a genetic predisposition to alcohol which, in combination with other factors in life, is going to almost guarantee some form of dependency in later life.

My form of alcoholism was much more controlled because I grew up in that very uncomfortable, very sad situation, and I determined that I was never going to do that, never be drunk. And I probably never was really out-and-out drunk. And I certainly never drank during the daytime. But I wasted a lot of my time, and I forgot a lot because I didn't remember much of what had happened the night before. I got out-of-proportion angry about things that were really unimportant. But that's what alcohol does to you.

GROSS: Did being an actress help you be able to drink and not show the signs of it, help you cover it up?

MOORE: Maybe so. I don't think so, though, because once your speech is slurred, once you lose balance, you know, there's no way you can pretend that away. But I paced myself. I never allowed myself to drink any more than the company I was with. And there - that way nobody could judge me. Nobody could see.

GROSS: Did you drink alone?

MOORE: Yeah, I did. But I was seldom alone except when I moved to New York. And then I was alone, and then my drinking really escalated. And I found myself not going out after 5 o'clock and making sure that everything was set up for me to have my dinner there on the bed that was by the air conditioner, that was near the phone, that was near the television set. And that I had my blender full of drinks that I was concocting in an attempt to do something worthwhile in the kitchen. It was a pretty sad lady that was emerging.

GROSS: Were you afraid that the press would find out that you drank a lot and it would be this whole thing...

MOORE: No, because...

GROSS: Yeah.

MOORE: ...I didn't think I drank a lot.

GROSS: Oh, I see.

MOORE: That's the amazing part of it. Most alcoholics are in such a state of denial about their condition. They will blame everything but themselves for whatever is going on. I didn't have hangovers, per se, but I found that it was getting very difficult to hold the eyeliner brush steady when I was applying my makeup in the morning.

So I thought, well, I guess that's just something that happens when you enter your 40s. And it's a nerve-wracking city, so I'll just have to, you know, take a little more time with it or use a thinner brush, whatever. And I had nobody to point out to me the lack of sense that I was making and the deterioration of my thinking.

GROSS: You stopped drinking - I think it was - what? - the mid-'80s?

MOORE: It was 11 years ago, yeah. I guess that was the mid-'80s, yes. '86.

GROSS: You did Betty Ford.

MOORE: Right.

GROSS: Do you think your emotional character changed after you stopped drinking?

MOORE: Oh, there's no question about it. In a way, I sometimes feel grateful that I did have this alcoholism, except that there were so many sad events that were caused by it that I can't wholeheartedly say that. But at least it got me to the Betty Ford Center where I was able to, with the help of some counselors and a lot of group therapy sessions, examine myself and the way I handled my life and the way I handled problems and the way I reacted to any given situation and was able to make major changes.

I allowed myself to be imperfect. I allowed myself to make mistakes and laugh at it, to handle my real-life mistakes the way I handled the acting mistakes on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," to think of those as positive steps forward rather than anything to be ashamed of.

GROSS: One of the movies that you've made over the years is "Change Of Habit," (laughter) which is...

MOORE: (Laughter).

GROSS: ...An Elvis film in which he plays a doctor in the ghetto and you're...

MOORE: ...He plays a singing surgeon (laughter) and I play a nun.

GROSS: A plainclothes nun.

MOORE: A plainclothes nun who was out of the habit. And it was the story about these two dedicated social workers who come together in the ghetto to bring about goodness to all mankind.

GROSS: But you start to fall in love, and at the end you must choose between God and Elvis.

MOORE: Right. And you see a shot of me in church looking from the - Jesus, the statue of Jesus, and Elvis playing guitar, and then to Jesus and Elvis and Jesus and Elvis and Jesus and Elvis. And you never know at the end who I finally chose. I was Elvis' last leading lady. And he apparently said in somebody's book - he is quoted in somebody's book as having said, there's only one leading lady that I didn't sleep with. And guess what? I know who she is.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Right. So what was it like to play opposite him?

MOORE: It was wonderful. And he was nothing like the image that a lot of us have about him. Back then - gosh, what was the year? I don't know. Maybe '67 or '68 - something like that. He was in great shape, and he was working out, and he was watching his diet. And he was living a good life. I mean, yes, there were a lot of ladies in and out of his trailer.

But he was sweet and wholesome. And he knew his dialogue, and he had done his homework. And he was - he had a big crush on me from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" but, you know, in a reserved, from-a-distance kind of way. If he didn't watch himself, he'd call me ma'am. And he was very shy and kind of awkward with me.

GROSS: Now, this was hardly the film that either you or Elvis became best known for (laughter).

MOORE: Right. I think it's better said that we triumphed over.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: In spite of this film, we continued.

GROSS: Did you regret making the film as it was being made? Did you have a sense that this was not going...

MOORE: Oh, no. I didn't know what I was doing at that time.

GROSS: Uh-huh.

MOORE: Movies were new to me. And, you know, they may have not felt as well-written and directed as the television shows that I had been involved in. But I thought, well, see, that's the difference in the medium. You know, this is a movie. And so they know what they're doing. And, as it turned out, they didn't. But (laughter) it's all right.

I really don't regret anything that I've done, in terms of my work. If I were writing a happily-ever-after piece, looking back, sure, there are things that would probably be better if they were erased and maybe not included at all. But I think I've learned from everything I've done. And I can't help but bring those experiences to what I do today.

GROSS: Mary Tyler Moore, thank you very much for talking with us.

MOORE: Thank you. I really enjoyed it, Terry. It's like talking with a pal.

BIANCULLI: Mary Tyler Moore speaking to Terry Gross in 1995. The star of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" died Wednesday at age 80. Coming up, Ed Ward reconsiders the music of The Monkees. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JIMMY AMADIE'S "YOU'D BE SO NICE TO COME HOME TO")

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. It's been 50 years since The Monkees first appeared on the pop charts and on television. And a half-century later, the verdict on The Monkees has undergone a major revision in some quarters. Even apart from the nostalgia people never thought they'd feel for the prefab four, their best songs have held up mostly due to the fact that they used top-notch songwriting talent. Just over 50 years on, rock historian Ed Ward takes a closer listen to their music, as presented on the CD collection "The Monkees 50."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE MONKEES THEME")

THE MONKEES: (Singing) Here we come walking down the street. We get the funniest looks from everyone we meet. Hey, hey, we're The Monkees and people say we monkey around. But we're too busy singing to put anybody down. We go wherever we want to...

ED WARD: I totally missed The Monkees when they were first around. Like a lot of my peers, by September 12, 1966, when the first TV episode aired, I was well into the growing underground music coming from California and London. Typical teenage snobbery, but since I'd never sat down and paid attention to them until 2016, it served me well. Knowing what I do about some of the personalities involved, they're far more interesting in retrospect. Take their first single and first number one record, for instance.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE")

THE MONKEES: (Singing) Take the last train to Clarksville and I'll meet you at the station. You can be here by 4:30 'cause I've made your reservation. Don't be slow. Oh, no, no, no, oh, no, no no. 'Cause I'm leaving in the morning and I must see you again. We'll have one more night together till the morning brings my train and I must go. Oh, no, no, no, oh, no, no, no. And I don't know if I'm ever coming home.

WARD: It was tuneful, which you'd expect from Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who wrote it and the show's theme song. But what exactly is going on here? The protagonist wants one more night because he doesn't know if he's ever coming home - ever. That's a long time. Given when this came out, could this have been a guy who's on his way to Vietnam? How many of the people laughing at The Monkees thought about that at the time? The show's producer, Don Kirshner, had founded Aldon Music in New York and hired Carole King and Gerry Goffin and a host of other Teen Pan Alley songwriters, then sold the company to Screen Gems, a film and television production company. Thanks to him, The Monkees had some of the hottest talent writing material for them. And with the rise of bands that wrote their own songs, these songwriters had a lot of time on their hands. Some had ambitions of their own.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M A BELIEVER")

THE MONKEES: (Singing) I thought love was only true in fairy tales, meant for someone but not for me. Love was out to get me. That's the way it seemed. Disappointment haunted all my dreams. Then I saw her face. Now I'm a believer. Not a trace of doubt in my mind. I'm in love. I'm a believer. I couldn't leave her if I tried.

WARD: Neil Diamond was one of the last writers taken on at Aldon, and the move to Screen Gems meant that he had more opportunity for exposure than ever, especially when a group took his songs to number one. And although the show's producers weren't happy about it, one of the actors already had a small recording and performing career behind him and was an excellent songwriter to boot.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MARY, MARY")

THE MONKEES: (Singing) Mary, Mary, where you going to? Mary, Mary, can I go too? This one thing I will vow ya, I'd rather die than to live without ya. Mary, Mary, where you going to?

WARD: Michael Nesmith was a rich kid from Texas who'd gone to Los Angeles to make contacts and get famous and somehow got selected out of the 437 applicants for the show who'd included everyone from Stephen Stills to Mickey Rooney Jr.. It was he who led the revolt that saw the cast learning to play their own instruments and the forced resignation of Don Kirshner. But they still had to find songs.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY")

THE MONKEES: (Singing) The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their song. They serenade the weekend squire who just came out to mow his lawn. Another pleasant valley Sunday, charcoal burning everywhere. Rows of houses that are all the same, and no one seems to care. See Mrs. Gray, she's proud today...

WARD: "Pleasant Valley Sunday," a cookie-cutter song about how plastic suburbia was, was written by Goffin and King and their next No. 1 song, "Daydream Believer," would be written by John Stewart, lately of the Kingston Trio. By the time that hit the charts, it was fall of 1967, the pop landscape was a whole different place and there were major changes ahead. In February, 1968, the television show was canceled, but the band - actors no more - still had plenty of fans. They decided to do something about that and made a movie.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PORPOISE SONG")

THE MONKEES: (Singing) My, my, the clock in the sky is pounding away and there's so much to say. A face, a voice, an overdub has no choice. An image cannot rejoice. Wanting to be, to hear and to see, crying to the sky. But the porpoise is laughing, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

WARD: Goffin and King's "Porpoise Song" was the theme to The Monkees' film "Head," a drug-soaked enigma that has its defenders today but baffled its audience, as it probably was intended to. Its resemblance of Phil Spector's sound was no accident. It was arranged by his arranger, Jack Nitzsche, and had a lot of familiar names from his records playing on it. By 1969, The Monkees were an album band like everyone else, with fewer and fewer hits and one fewer member, since Peter Tork had bought himself out of his contract. Early in 1970, Nesmith quit to form the underrated country rock First National Band, and The Monkees, except for some revivals, were effectively over.

BIANCULLI: Ed Ward is the author of the new book "The History Of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920-1963." He reviewed "The Monkees 50." On Monday's show, a doctor's perspective on how medicine has changed the end of life.

HAIDER WARRAICH: Doing things has become very easy - ordering a C.T. scan, ordering some treatment - but knowing when to stop is so much harder.

BIANCULLI: We talk with Dr. Haider Warraich. His new book is called "Modern Death." Hope you can join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DAYDREAM BELIEVER")

THE MONKEES: (Singing) Oh, I could hide beneath the wings of the bluebird as she sings. The 6 o'clock alarm would never ring. But it rings and I rise...

BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our associate producer for online media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DAYDREAM BELIEVER")

THE MONKEES: (Singing) Oh, what can it mean to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen? You once thought of me as a white knight on his steed. Now you know how happy I can be.

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.