On Sunday night, the Screen Actors Guild Awards gala took place as the best on our TV screens gathered for the 18th time to celebrate their best. It was also the night Mary Tyler Moore won the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award for “The May Tyler Moore Show”, a success back in the 1970s.
Mary Tyler Moore has a plethora of prizes and the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award is a nice item to add to the collection. The actress can praise herself with seven Emmy statuettes, three Golden Globe awards and four People’s Choice awards. By now, there’s practically nobody (except the much younger audience) who doesn’t know what MTM stands for.
A similar view had the actress’ co-star in the 1960’s popular sit-com “The Dick Van Dyke Show”. Dick Van Dyke introduced Mary Tyler Moore to come and receive her lifetime achievement award. “MTM. There’s probably not a person in the civilized world who doesn’t know what that means”.
Van Dyke talked about Mary Tyler Moore’s achievements throughout her career and life outside the shooting studio, going from a nomination for Oscar to a Hollywood executive. The heartwarming speech ended with Dick Van Dyke planting a kiss on his pretend to be wife (in “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, they played a married couple that really got to the audience). They both got standing ovations.
“I was Mary Tyler Moore. I spoke it out loud. Mary Tyler Moore. It sounded right so I wrote it down on the form, and it looked right”, said the actress in remembrance of her filling with the Screen Actors Guild. At that time there were already six others Mary Moors in the guild, so instead of changing her entire name, she just added Tyler, the middle name of both her and her father.
“It was right. SAG was happy, my father was happy, and tonight, after having the privilege of working in this business among the most creative and talented people imaginable, I too am happy, after all” she added.
The night was full of emotion and surprise as actors in the guild received their awards for skill and popularity. For instance, Alec Baldwin won his sixth award for Best Male Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance in “30 Rock”.
