TV Land announced today that beloved and acclaimed Emmy award-winning actress and Oscar nominee Mary Tyler Moore (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show”) will guest star on the second season premiere of TV Land’s hit sitcom “Hot in Cleveland” on Wednesday, January 19th at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Moore will join the sensational veteran cast of Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick and Betty White. “Hot In Cleveland” is written by Emmy Award-winning Suzanne Martin (“Frasier,” “Ellen”) and produced by Emmy Award-winner Sean Hayes (“Will & Grace”) and Todd Milliner of Hazy Mills Productions. The premiere episode will be taped at CBS Radford, the same studio where “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was taped over three decades ago.
Moore’s guest appearance will be the first time in 33 years that she and Betty White have acted on screen together since the groundbreaking hit “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” went off the air. Moore’s role in the sitcom will involve White’s character Elka, who in the season one cliffhanger, was arrested.
About Mary Tyler Moore:
Seven-time Emmy® Award winner Mary Tyler Moore holds a special place in people’s hearts as a symbol of female independence and strength, both in her work and personal life.
Her first taste of success came as Laura Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” from 1961-66. During the 1970s, she starred in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which garnered twenty-nine Emmys® during its seven-year run, including four for its star.
Moore then transferred her talents to films including Ordinary People for which she earned an Academy Award® nomination, and Six Weeks, for which she had the joy of co-starring with Dudley Moore. The highly acclaimed comedy Flirting With Disaster won positive reviews for the film and its stars.
She made her dramatic debut on Broadway in Whose Life Is It Anyway? in which she portrayed a hospitalized quadriplegic fighting for control of her own destiny and was honored with a Tony Award. In 1988, she played Mary Todd Lincoln in the NBC mini-series Gore Vidal’s “Lincoln,” again earning critical praise and an Emmy nomination. Many television movies followed including Stolen Babies for which she won a seventh Emmy Award.
In portraying the murderous Sante Kimes in the CBS movie “Like Mother, Like Son,” she once again reminded the audience of her vast range. The movie aired in the spring of 2001 and ranked number seven of all primetime programs the week of its broadcast.
In 2004, she starred with Dick Van Dyke in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “The Gin Game,” on PBS, and for CBS television, an adaptation of the Anna Quindlen book ” Blessings” in which she played the 82-year-old matriarch. In 2006, Moore starred in the CBS made for television movie, “Snow Wonder,” and also appeared in a guest-starring role on FOX’s “That 70s Show.”
Moore was seen as a guest-star on NBC’s “Lipstick Jungle” in 2008. In a multi-episode arc on the series, Moore played Joyce, a retired high-powered exec who forces Wendy, her studio-head daughter (played by Brooke Shields), to re-evaluate the work vs. family dilemma. Having blazed a trail for working women back in the 70’s and 80’s, Joyce challenges Wendy’s idealistic notion of “having it all,” leaving her overachieving daughter in a tailspin.
She was last seen in Peter Calahan’s dark comedy Against The Current opposite Joseph Fiennes and Justin Kirk. The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
In 2009, Moore’s book “Growing Up Again” was published by St. Martin’s Press. The book is an in-depth look into Mary’s life with diabetes. The book includes conversations with remarkable people who live with the disease and those who work on the frontiers of medical research. All of Miss Moore’s profits for the book were donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Moore is the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). She was honored in 2007 with the JDRF Humanitarian of the Year Award. She is also active in numerous animal welfare organizations and funds scholarship programs in the arts and academics.
Filmed in front of a live studio audience, “Hot in Cleveland” is executive produced by Emmy Award-winner Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner of Hazy Mills Productions and is helmed by Emmy® Award-winning Suzanne Martin (“Frasier,” “Ellen”) serving as executive producer, show runner and writer.
“Hot in Cleveland” revolves around three fabulous best friends from LA — novelist Melanie Moretti (Valerie Bertinelli), eye-brow archer to the stars Joy Scroggs (Jane Leeves) and former soap star Victoria Chase (Wendie Malick) — who find their lives changed forever when their plane, headed for Paris, makes an unexpected landing. When the friends discover that life is better for them and that they are hot in Cleveland, they decide to stay. Starting over together, they rent a house that happens to come with a very opinionated caretaker (Betty White).
(Source: TV Land)
