{Mary Tyler Moore} BEHIND ΤΗΕ SMILE

A REVEALING NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE BELOVED SITCOM STAR EXPLORES HOW PERSONAL HEARTACHE AND ILLNESS FAILED TO DIM HER DAZZLING ACHIEVEMENTS AND HOW AN UNEXPECTED LOVE LIT UP HER LIFE

- JEREMY HELLIGAR

The last time Carol Burnett saw Mary Tyler Moore was in 2012, when the two legends of television comedy appeared on a CBS birthday salute to Betty White, who was turning 90.

"Mary and I sat and talked," recalls Burnett. "At one point she said, 'Don't you want to do it all over again?' There was a little bit of a sadness in that. I said, 'No, been there, done that. We had fun, but I wouldn't want to go back and try it all over again. And she said, 'No, I just mean, wouldn't it be wonderful to do it all over again the way we did?"

Who could blame Moore for wanting to retrace those golden steps? In the years since she died at age 80 in 2017, no one has forgotten the whimsy, style and utter charm of her performances on two landmark CBS sitcoms, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77). She was, as the latter show's theme song suggested, a star "who could turn the world on with her smile." But there was so much that Moore's smile concealed a childhood clouded by dysfunction, as well as personal tragedies, failed marriages, alcoholism and health problems (including the diabetes that eventually left her nearly blind)until she found enduring romance with her third husband, cardiologist Robert Levine, 68.