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CNN Larry King Live
Much Ado About Mary
Aired June 25, 2001 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, much ado about Mary! Audience favorite Mary Tyler Moore is here to talk about her terrific career and often troubled past, and her ongoing fight against a potentially deadly disease -- Mary for the hour with your calls, next on LARRY KING LIVE!
It's always a great pleasure to welcome Mary Tyler Moore to LARRY KING LIVE. She livens up the studio. Later on, we'll show you some clips of an event we did this morning. I had the honor of emceeing it for the second year in a row, the Children's Congress for Juvenile Diabetes. Mary is their international chairperson. She's here for their international Congress, and testifying on the Hill as well.
We'll get to all that later, but first, what's this about a statue of you in Minneapolis?
MARY TYLER MOORE, ACTOR: Oh. They told me about that, and...
KING: What are they going to do?
MOORE: I guess it's -- well, I'm not going to do anything. Somebody is going to make a statue, and it will be a replica of Mary throwing her hat in the air. And it will be on one of the corners of the intersection in which I really ran and threw my hat in air, like an idiot.
(LAUGHTER)
MOORE: But they all seem to remember it, and they seem to want this statue, so I'm being a good sport and going along with it.
KING: I'll tell you what the mayor of Minneapolis, Sharon Sayles Belton said: "Tossing the hat inspired so many women. It showed that we're capable, we're bold, and we're also cute."
MOORE: Yes.
KING: There is no controversy paying tribute to a fictional character, when real-life Minnesotans like Bob Dylan and Sinclair Lewis didn't get statues?
MOORE: Yes, but I'm real life.
KING: That's right. You're not a fictional character (LAUGHTER)
MOORE: No.
KING: How did that hat thing start? Whose idea?
MOORE: Well, we were in Minneapolis doing film for the opening of the show, and among the many suggestions, somebody said: "Hey, Mary, take that hat off. Go out into the middle of the intersection -- be careful, but go out there and throw your hat in the air like you're really exuberant and happy to be there and ready to take on life."
And I always do as I'm told. So I did.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: That's what you are. You're a puppet.
MOORE: And you've seen that woman, forever and ever, frozen in time,
KING: That's right. That's one of the great individual scenes in television history. Was it cold that day, or...
MOORE: It was so cold, Larry, I could not speak. That's why they said go out in the intersection and throw your hat in the air. You're useless otherwise.
KING: You could not speak. Why did they pick Minneapolis?
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Why did they pick Minneapolis as a base for that television show?
MOORE: Well, it's a metropolitan area, it's also close to farms. It had weather. It had everything that a show could want, in terms of creating new ideas for scripts and stuff.
KING: Did you -- coming out of the Dick Van Dyke thing, did you have any idea that that show would be what it was? The impact...
MOORE: The Mary show, or the -- yes. No, I didn't. I was just so grateful. That was a heavenly time in television, too -- when you were given a commitment for 24 episodes too. Too bad we don't work that way today.
KING: Now, we did a tribute to Carroll O'Connor the other night, and...
MOORE: Did you? Bless your heart.
KING: ... they pointed out on that show that another thing, there were no VCRs, there were no tapes. When you were watching...
MOORE: You had to show up.
KING: You had to show up, and watch you right through.
MOORE: Yes.
KING: And it was table conversation the next morning.
MOORE: It sure was, and water cooler conversation in the office, too.
KING: And why do you think she -- I'm talking about the character, because you've always said don't, you know, "I'm actress. That's a personality." Why does she endure?
MOORE: Because she's so much like me.
KING: Set me up pretty good there.
MOORE: She is a nonthreatening character. She is not imposing. She doesn't challenge you. She just tries to put herself in challenging situations.
KING: Is she weak?
MOORE: She's not at all weak. She's very apologetic -- if she bumps into a piece of furniture, she'll apologize to it. But, no, she is just a good kid.
KING: When they drew the character up, did you see it as a kind of continuation of Petrie?
MOORE: No, not at all.
KING: Not at all. Completely.
MOORE: Because that came -- that was sort of in reverse order. Laura Petrie should have been what followed Mary Tyler Moore, or Richards, whatever we're going to call her. But, no, she was a married lady. And I had all that long, lovely hair, too. It was a wig.
KING: You've gotten so -- you were so associated with that part, right?
MOORE: Yes.
KING: Did that, do you think -- we've now learned later on how terrific an actress you are, how diversified you are -- we'll get to the Sante Kimes thing as a great example in a minute, and a wonderful movie you did, too.
MOORE: Thank you.
KING: Was it Robert Redford.
MOORE: Robert Redford directed "Ordinary People," yes. KING: So you showed up. But then, were you so tight that no one considered you were Mary Richards?
MOORE: No, but I didn't think of that as being limiting in any way, because Mary Richards was drawn on my personality. The scripts were beautifully written by geniuses, who put her in wonderful situations and gave her great things to say and reactions to have. But she was very much like me. I kind of drove that series by the seat of my pants. I didn't have to work at it too hard.
KING: The cast -- almost letter perfect, right?
MOORE: Who are you thinking of when you say "almost"?
KING: Well, because nothing's perfect.
MOORE: All right. OK, there you go.
KING: Temperamental stars, I tell you.
MOORE: You are so mean.
KING: Mean? That's right, I'm (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
OK -- no, true? The cast...
MOORE: I think so, yes. And it's a tribute to Jim Brooks and Allan Burns, who created that show, that they allowed new thoughts, other people's ideas to enter into their sphere of creativity.
For example, Ted Knight, actually Ted Baxter, played by Ted Knight, was supposed to be tall, dark and handsome. He was supposed to be a love interest for Mary. And Ted Knight walked into the room with all his -- pomposity and ego, and they said, oh, yes, we have to do this. I can think of a thousand things we can do with this. So that was something that hadn't come from the very beginning.
KING: You know, with all great sitcoms, the supplementary characters, I'm talking about "Taxi"....
MOORE: Yes.
KING: "All in the Family"...
MOORE: Right.
KING: All were great. In other words, the lead is important.
MOORE: Right.
KING: But you need that carrying group.
MOORE: Well, I was, I think, looking at the show, the voice of sanity. I was the audience. I had their reactions. I was their mindset, and everybody else surrounded me with whirling dervish creativity, and I got to react to them. KING: How many years did you do that?
MOORE: Seven. Seven years.
KING: We'll be right back with Mary Tyler Moore, and we'll take another step, and we'll talk about the incredible role she did as -- playing someone who was a former guest. In fact, there's a story about that. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Mary Tyler Moore.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW")
EDWARD ASNER, ACTOR: How old are you?
MOORE: 30.
ASNER: No hedging. No "how old do I look?"
MOORE: Why hedge? How old do I look?
(LAUGHTER)
ASNER: 30. What religion are you?
MOORE: Mr. Grant, I don't quite know how to say this, but you're not allowed to ask that when someone's applying for a job. It's against the law.
ASNER: Want to call a cop?
(LAUGHTER)
MOORE: No.
ASNER: Good. Would you think I was violating your civil rights if I asked if you're married?
MOORE: Presbyterian.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We recently, in first segment, talked about Mary not being Mary, and broadening out with various roles. Mary played Sante Kimes in the brilliant television production called "Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes," the mother and son duo who were convicted of killing that older lady in New York. The body has never been found. Both are now in California facing trials on other things.
Before -- well, let me first show you. We interviewed Sante Kimes at Rikers Island before she was sent to her full-time prison. Let's watch a portion of that, and then I want to ask Mary something -- watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANTE KIMES, CONVICTED MURDERER: There was no trail of evidence.
KING: What about the credit cards and all of that?
KIMES: They didn't have where they had taken them and put them down, or whether they registered where they had given...
KING: You had nothing of hers on your...
KIMES: Not one thing. In my purse, I had maybe a little wallet, and so -- and then I had money. That was all planted when they found out that we were guests over there, and I am the one that told them that we were guests over there, I said we were staying over at this apartment. And then, next day, all of this started.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Sante Kimes. Now, when that played, I get a call from Mary Tyler Moore shortly after, and she says: "Listen" -- well, tell me what you said. You were going to go play this -- you were thinking about taking this part?
MOORE: Well, actually, I had initiated it. I read in the paper that CBS was going to make this movie, and I said: "Hey, guys, I really want to play her." I just...
KING: And you called me up and said you saw the show, and you were fascinated.
MOORE: I saw your interview, and I was scared to death because I looked at a woman who I was convinced was innocent. And I began to believe the lies that she has told through the years. She has this enormous gift of being able to make you believe whatever she wants you to believe.
KING: Do you think it's because she -- you play her as if she believed it?
MOORE: I played her as though she was absolutely, 100 percent right in everything she did, because that's the way a sociopath operates. They don't believe they are mean, or bad, or doing anything wrong. They are doing what they have to.
KING: So, before we show this clip, what were you scared of?
MOORE: I was afraid that I had made a bad mistake, that I was going to try to play somebody who was innocent. Even though I was going to play her as she believed she was innocent, I wanted to think, well, she is guilty, and this is a woman that I'm going to have to play with honesty and be sure.
KING: By the way, is it more difficult to play someone who is alive and real?
MOORE: Oh, it is if that person is well-known, I suppose, a political figure...
(CROSSTALK)
MOORE: ... but I didn't think it was important for me to -- although I think I looked like her a little bit. I do.
KING: Maybe the younger, not the older.
MOORE: Well, thank you very much.
KING: Let's watch a scene from what will certainly win her an Emmy.
MOORE: Oh, Larry! Now you've wrecked it!
KING: She has no chance to win the Emmy, and here is one of the reasons why. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LIKE MOTHER LIKE SON")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do the defendants plead?
MOORE: We are innocent, your honor. We have been framed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sit down!
MOORE: There is no crime because there is no body! How could there be a crime without a body? The police don't even know where the woman is! She could be off on a vacation for all they know!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Defense, your client is out of order.
MOORE: They manufactured this crime! It's a premeditated murder of my own son who has done nothing!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Momma, stop it!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: You know, you look like her a little.
MOORE: Don't I?
KING: Yeah.
MOORE: Yeah.
KING: When you were doing that, do you get caught up in it? Do you like sort of become her?
MOORE: Yes. Oh, very much so. But as I said, she thought of herself as innocent.
KING: Right. She probably to this day thinks she did nothing.
MOORE: Oh, I'm sure of it. KING: All is a setup, everyone framed her, everyone used her.
MOORE: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
KING: Have you ever heard or known of anyone quite like this?
MOORE: Well, of course that movie "The Grifters," that was...
KING: Yeah. Similar.
MOORE: Very much like Sante and son. And by the way, you called her "S-anty," and she would be very angry with you.
KING: I kept calling her that, what...
MOORE: It's "Sh-anty," baby.
KING: Yeah, but you want to say -- there is no "H."
MOORE: No, but it's a kind of a French thing.
KING: Now, why did you film that in Australia?
MOORE: I don't know. It was tough, too. It took 20 hours to get there.
KING: Why Australia?
MOORE: Well, I think they have some kind of a financial arrangement where it allows the producers to do it for less money.
KING: They could go to Canada, too.
MOORE: Well, yeah, but they saved a lot of money by going to Australia.
KING: So, you had to fly all the way there?
MOORE: All the way there, and all the way home again, and it was tough. It really was.
KING: Do you like diversity?
MOORE: Yes, I do.
KING: Do you like comedy and then doing this?
MOORE: Absolutely. I like it all. Yeah.
KING: Are you going to do another movie again?
MOORE: Probably. And maybe another play. I don't know.
KING: Go back on Broadway?
MOORE: Why not. Will you go with me? KING: You know what we ought to do?
MOORE: What?
KING: "Love Letters."
MOORE: Oh, yes, let's do it.
KING: We could do that. We could pull that off.
MOORE: I've done that several times.
KING: Yeah, let's do that. We could do that.
MOORE: All right, good.
KING: That would work.
MOORE: You got a part.
KING: With our little clashing personalities.
MOORE: "Love Letters," in case you don't know, is a play written by A.R. Gurney about the relationship of a pair of children who know each other through adulthood, and all of the romances, and the businesses...
KING: The ups and downs.
MOORE: The ups and downs throughout their lives.
KING: And of course, we haven't had no history, we will try to pull this off.
MOORE: Yes, of course.
KING: We will be right back with Mary Tyler Moore, the ups and downs of her life, and then we'll talk about her battle against juvenile diabetes. We'll be taking your calls as well for this extraordinary lady. Don't go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LIKE MOTHER LIKE SON")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How stupid can you get?
MOORE: In broad daylight?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I won't steal anything again, I promise.
MOORE: No, Kent, don't get caught again! And you take that smile off your face, I want both of you to listen to me. Getting caught will just make you afraid, and if you're afraid, you're going to lose every time. And I'm not raising a pair of losers here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW")
ED ASNER, ACTOR: I have decided to promote you to producer of the WJM 6:00 news.
MOORE: Oh, Mr. Grant! Oh, that -- I -- I -- I -- I mean, I -- I just don't know what to say.
ASNER: Really? I thought you put it very well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Brilliant. Mary Tyler Moore. Tomorrow night, Dominick Dunne.
How -- when you look at your life with all the success, do you ever think that at the same time, just a couple of notes here that I have, a cloud hangs over you? You have an alcoholic mother, a distant father, you are raised by an aunt and a grandmother, you have a son from a very early marriage when you are 18, he dies accidentally shooting himself. You have your own problems with alcohol. Do you ever think like I have led two lives?
MOORE: No. Because I don't think there is a person on earth who hasn't had as much pain as I have. No. It's true.
KING: So, you don't think you are unusual in that regard?
MOORE: I think each of us is unusual because there are different situations that come to us, and how we handle them is different. But I'm not alone.
KING: How do you go about dealing with loss, losing a son -- you lost a brother, right?
MOORE: And my sister.
KING: And a sister. She was how old?
MOORE: She was 21.
KING: How do you...
MOORE: I don't know. When you look at the alternative, what do you do?
KING: Well, you're not going to kill yourself?
MOORE: That's right.
KING: But a part of you is always gone, though, right?
MOORE: That's right. That's right. And I lose myself in other people, I get involved in the work I do for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and my work for animals, and... KING: And your work work.
MOORE: And my work work, yes.
KING: Is that a survival thing, do you think? It works, you could be somebody else?
MOORE: I don't know, I -- you know, it has been my life, a good part of my life for so many years. I just don't know how to do anything else. I spent too much time being an actress. I don't give dinner parties, and I don't have lunch, and...
KING: You are not -- you don't make the social whirl, right?
MOORE: No, no, I don't.
KING: Never did?
MOORE: No, no. Oh, maybe I attempted a party or two here and there, but it never felt right on me.
KING: How were you able to defeat alcohol?
MOORE: I went to the Betty Ford Center, and there are many such organizations now that can help people who -- who are anesthetizing themselves. I think that's the closest I can come to explain what it's like, what it was like for me. Life was too painful to deal with. And I felt that everybody else could deal with it all right. But I couldn't. Like there was something missing in me. So, I was covering it with alcohol.
KING: And it worked for you?
MOORE: It worked for so long, then it stopped working, and I knew that I had a problem, and I couldn't stop.
KING: So you would fall off the wagon?
MOORE: Yeah.
KING: Did Betty Ford finally work?
MOORE: Yes, it did.
KING: Why?
MOORE: Well, first of all, that was about 16 years ago.
KING: You still consider yourself an alcoholic?
MOORE: You know what it is -- oh, yes, a recovering alcoholic. They get to the soul of you. They strip you bare of all of the -- the methods you have devised over the years of hiding, of pretending, and, they let you know that it is all right to feel the way you feel. That pain is a normal thing to feel. And you better get used to it.
KING: When you are there, are you another person or are you Mary? Does everybody know you, you're famous -- does that affect...?
MOORE: But everybody is there because they are troubled, so nobody pays any attention to anyone but themselves.
KING: They're not talking to you about movies.
MOORE: No. Not at all. And it made me really mad, too.
KING: It's enough that I'm drinking; they don't know me!
When we come back, we will talk about how she finds out that she has juvenile diabetes after the age of 30. What they are doing in that fight, show you some clips of what happened this morning, they are testifying tomorrow on the Senate floor, and we are going to take your calls for the brilliant Mary Tyler Moore. Don't go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW")
DICK VAN DYKE: One more instruction, I'm going to pick you up and carry you out of here.
MOORE: I'm ready, dear.
VAN DYKE: You sure you don't want to tell Janey what television programs to watch?
MOORE: There is a special on juvenile delinquency. I don't know the time or channel, but there's a program -- -- what are you, don't go into Ritchie's room, use paper in the wastepaper basket! There's apples in the fruit bowl, bottom shelf in the refrigerator. Just a minute!
What did you say was in the bottom shelf of the refrigerator?
VAN DYKE: Who knows? If it's food, eat it. If it's a phone number, call it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: I'm also on the board of the international JDRF, and this morning for the second year in a row, we held our Children's Congress on the steps of Capitol Hill. I am seated again and Mary Tyler Moore of course was the principal speaker, from CNN cameras was there.
This was the way it looked when Mary was speaking, all those children behind her from 50 states, all of them have juvenile diabetes. They were...
MOORE: 200 of them.
KING: 200 of them. They were then later in the song, Congressmen spoke, tomorrow Mary will testify on the Hill, it was a wonderful, wonderful event. It seems strange, but you knew you had juvenile diabetes at what age? MOORE: I was 31. I was an older chap to be developing...
KING: Usually they know it in 8, 9 year-olds, right?
MOORE: Or Larry, sometimes, two months.
KING: So...
MOORE: Some are born with it.
KING: Did you always have it and not know it?
MOORE: You always have the propensity for it. That is what you inherit, and it will take some outside factor to bring it on, either an emotional or physical trauma, they think it may be a virus, they are not really sure what the other element is. For me, it was a miscarriage that I had.
KING: Really?
MOORE: And while I was in the hospital, being attended to, they took a routine sample of my blood, and your blood sugar normally is supposed to be from 70 to 110 or 120 -- mine was 750. I actually made it into a medical book. As under-- under another name. Not as Mary Tyler Moore!
KING: The highest ever recorded...
MOORE: Well, the circumstances were such, that I -- that the -- miscarriage might have been caused by the diabetes or it might have caused the diabetes.
KING: And you had to start taking insulin.
MOORE: Yes.
KING: How could have you diabetes and be an alcoholic?
MOORE: Well it is not easy, you have to really be dedicated, Larry.
KING: Can't it kill you?
MOORE: Well, yes. I suppose anything taken to extremes can. But, it didn't take much to put me under, so I didn't ever feel that I was running a risk from the standpoint of the diabetes but I probably was.
KING: Yeah, now you have lived a pretty long time, but a lot of people at Juvenile Diabetes Foundation don't make it.
MOORE: That is right, and who knows? I may be meant to live to 100. Probably won't make that because of the diabetes. Because of the wear and tear that it puts on the body on the vital organs. It is a number one cause of blindness, it is one of the big causes of amputation. KING: Do you fear that?
MOORE: Yes, I do. And as a matter of fact, I have had several episodes both with my eyes and almost having to have an amputation.
KING: They told me today they are very hopeful they are pretty close.
MOORE: Well, the most exciting thing that is happening in this research is stem cell research. We are very close. What we need now is a massive amount of money for the national institutes of health and that's what we are here for.
KING: Are you angered at the White House debate over this?
MOORE: No, I think it is a situation that requires deep thought, a lot of mulling, and serious consideration, but then you have to allow the truth to come out. And the truth in my mind and in the mind of several very conservative right to life politicians, people, Connie Mack, Orrin Hatch, Tommy Thompson, there are so many people who have...
KING: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) outweighs the fear, right?
MOORE: Yes, what we are dealing with here is embryos, it is actually called in this stage, a blastocyst. It is a tiny collection of cells.
KING: Often discarded, right?
MOORE: Often discarded. Women have to have several standing by for in vitro fertilization.
KING: Will that be part of your testimony tomorrow?
MOORE: Yes, it will be. But when it becomes a pregnancy, then they are left with these others that have no purpose, and they destroy them, and what we are saying -- what the scientists are saying is, give us those embryos so we can create a future for other people, a life -- it can cure Alzheimer's, it can cure spinal injury, diabetes, Parkinson's....
KING: Christopher Reeve is a big supporter.
MOORE: Yes.
KING: Mary Tyler Moore will appear tomorrow on Capitol Hill. You will be seeing it on all your newscasts, we are sure.
We're going to go to calls for her. To test your knowledge on tonight's subject on King's Quiz log on to our Web site at cnn.com/larryking. We will be back, start taking phone calls for Mary Tyler Moore. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To all of you pink-nosed little snow bunnies -- Mary, can't you see I'm doing the news?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Read it? All right.
MOORE: Out loud!
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That was funny stuff. Mary Tyler Moore is our guest, the international chairperson of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in Washington for a big children's Congress this morning. She will testify tomorrow. Before we go to calls -- by the way, Dominick Dunne is the guest tomorrow night.
Dominick has got a new book out called "Justice." You know, he has attended and written about just about every famous murder trial of the '90s, including the O.J. Simpson trials and others -- and the Menendez trial in California. It's a terrific book. He is the guest tomorrow night talking about infamy and crime in America.
MOORE: And a wonderful human being.
KING: He is. Dominick Dunne is one of a kind.
MOORE: Yes.
KING: Do you worry about testifying?
MOORE: I want to do it well, I want to do it right. So, I worry about it from that standpoint. Yes, I want to tell the correct story.
KING: You have testified in the past with Michael J. Fox.
MOORE: Yes. Yes. And do you want to know something interesting, Larry? When people in the United States have been educated as to what goes on in this stem cell research, over 71 percent are for it. And that includes fundamentalist Christians, Catholics.
KING: Let's go to calls for Mary Tyler Moore. Redstone, Colorado, hello. Hello.
CALLER: Hello.
KING: Go ahead.
MOORE: Hello.
CALLER: Hi, can you hear me?
KING: Yes, sure, go ahead.
CALLER: Great. Hi, Mary, you're wonderful.
MOORE: Hi.
CALLER: I'm so glad to hear your position on stem cell research, that's fantastic.
MOORE: Thank you.
CALLER: I wanted to know, back in the '70s, especially when you were going through all the diabetes and stuff, I'm wondering how much effect did that have on your continuing to work in the acting industry, and do you think that that -- that the conditions have improved for people who are trying to work with diabetes or asthma, or whatever conditions today in that particularly industry?
MOORE: Sort of disability, yeah. I think those conditions have changed, and it has nothing to do with my condition, because diabetes -- I think for a long time people didn't take diabetes very seriously, because they saw people like me working very hard and triumphing.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Or athletes playing ball.
MOORE: Yes. But what they didn't see was all the other stuff that goes on, how you have to be kind of a chemist just to live your life daily, checking your blood sugars three, four times a day, making sure that what you eat has just the right amount of that food compared to the amount of insulin you're taking, and the exercise and oh, my God, if you have some sort of tension...
KING: By the way, the show following us tonight has got a special report coming on diabetes and the non-taking of having injections of insulin.
MOORE: Yes, but you know something, Larry, we have to remember that insulin, no matter what forms it takes, whether it's by shot or by inhaling or cream, whatever it is, is just a life support...
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Not a cure?
MOORE: That's right.
KING: Also, the American Diabetic Association meeting in Philadelphia today announced that every diabetic should be treated as someone who could imminently have a heart attack.
MOORE: Right. You have to treat yourself, and others around you have to be aware that that's true on any kind of level.
KING: Type I or type II.
MOORE: Right. Right.
KING: Orlando, Florida, hello.
CALLER: Hi, this is Ruth.
MOORE: Hi, Ruth.
KING: Hi, Ruth.
CALLER: Hi. I wanted to ask you about your gorgeous and unique suits that you wore on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." A couple of them had these arrows going down the sleeves.
MOORE: Oh yes.
CALLER: I don't know if you remember them.
MOORE: Yes.
CALLER: But I wondered who designed them, and if had any choice in picking out what you wore.
MOORE: I did have a choice, I had a wonderful wardrobe designer, a person who would shop for the clothes for whatever scenes we were doing, and she'd bring in four samples of things for one scene, and I would choose the one I wanted out of those four, and so on. And we would talk about it, we'd say: "You like this?" "No, I don't like this." "Well, try it with this sweater." We were just...
KING: Were you able to look at something that you would say: "Well, I wouldn't wear that. "
MOORE: Yeah.
KING: ... but Mary Richards would.
MOORE: No, because Mary Richards was so much like Mary Tyler Moore, so whatever worked for me had to work for her, in my mind.
KING: Akron, Ohio, hello.
CALLER: Hi, Mary.
MOORE: Hi.
CALLER: I was just wondering what was it like working under Robert Redford in "Ordinary People?" I loved your character in that.
MOORE: Thank you. So did I.
CALLER: I just wondered, was it based on some -- on you, or someone in his life as I had heard?
MOORE: Well, both. For Redford, it was his father, and for me it was my father. I have since come to a really good place with my dad, who is 88 years old and still very healthy. He still gets up on the roof and cleans out the gutters, and I salute and applaud his every action these days.
But it was incredible working with Redford. I would be sitting, talking with him about a scene, and you know, we would be deep in a conversation, and he is listening to me as though I really were an intelligent person, and all of a sudden I would say: "Oh, my God, that's Redford!"
KING: Very good director, isn't he?
MOORE: He is wonderful! He is so good.
KING: And he doesn't -- he's not an over-the-top screaming director.
MOORE: No, not at all. I mean, he screamed at me, you know, for other reasons.
KING: But he is -- he is laid-back?
MOORE: He is a great director and he does homework. He comes to the set prepared, he knows what he wants, and then he lets the actors -- after he has gotten everything he wants on film -- he lets you play. He says, OK, now, kids, go in there and if you want to just pick at your face or look around the room, whatever you want to do, do it.
KING: He's done terrific, diversified work. "Quiz Show," "A River Runs Through It."
MOORE: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he's -- you talk about a genius. He really is one.
KING: Good guy too.
MOORE: Yes, he is.
KING: Back with more of Mary Tyler Moore on this edition of LARRY KING LIVE, and more of your phone calls. Don't go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "ORDINARY PEOPLE")
MOORE: No, that was meant for me, Calvin.
DONALD SUTHERLAND, ACTOR: What was meant for you?
MOORE: It's really important to try to hurt me, isn't it?
TIMOTHY HUTTON, ACTOR: Don't you have that backwards?
MOORE: Oh? And how do I hurt you? By embarrassing you in front of a friend? Poor Beth, she has no idea what her son is up to! He lies, and she believes every word of it.
HUTTON: I didn't lie!
MOORE: You did! You lied every time you came into this house at 6:30! If it's starting all over again, the lying, the covering up, the disappearing for hours, I will not stand for it! I can't stand it. I really can't!
HUTTON: Well, don't then! Go to Europe!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW")
ASNER: Life is tough.
MOORE: You're right, Mr. Grant. Life is tough.
ASNER: You know what else is tough? If you don't start shaping up, I'm going to have to fire you.
MOORE: Do you mean that?
ASNER: No.
(LAUGHTER)
ASNER: Just a scare tactic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MOORE: See, I'd forgotten. I didn't know that he had that line afterwards.
KING: Mary Tyler Moore. Toronto, hello.
CALLER: Hi, there.
MOORE: Hi.
KING: Hi.
CALLER: Mary, I want to thank you for all the laughs for all the years. It's wonderful.
MOORE: It's been my pleasure, believe me.
CALLER: I want to ask you, also, where did the impetus for all the comedy from, with all the negative things you had happen?
KING: Good question.
MOORE: Oh, I had a family that was so funny, and they had a great respect for humor. It was almost a...
KING: But you had tragedy, too. I mean, you had...
MOORE: Yes, we did.
KING: You mean there was humor in the house?
MOORE: Right. Yes, my mother and father were very funny people.
KING: Even thought they were kind of weird?
MOORE: Well, they were not weird people. They were just who they were. They were trapped inside themselves, based on how their parents raised them. And so it tends to kind of go that way, you know, children who come from a certain kind of home produce that kind of home in their own lives without meaning to. Anyway, it was the humor in my family.
KING: So you had laughs.
MOORE: Yes. Oh, sure.
KING: Are you -- this is such a generalized thing -- happy now? I mean, you have a happy marriage...
MOORE: What is happiness, Larry?
Yes, I am.
KING: That's a good take. I like that -- print. OK. You are happy?
MOORE: Yes.
KING: Oregon, Ohio, hello.
CALLER: Hello.
MOORE: Hi.
CALLER: Hi. I personally wanted to thank Mary for her ongoing, tireless fight to cure -- to find a cure for diabetes. But my question is, do you have advice on a personal level for a family, as we attempt to continue to encourage our 7-year-old daughter, Kristen (ph), to manage her own diabetes, and yet not become overwhelmed with the potential of complications of this debilitating disease?
MOORE: Right.
KING: Good question.
MOORE: Well, I think you've got to rely on your -- her doctor, and work very closely with him or her. And I think you should probably join one of the groups. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, if you call them, will be able to put you in touch with some groups that can talk about these problems with you.
KING: Carroll O'Connor had diabetes, and the death was related to diabetes.
MOORE: Yes.
KING: It brought on a heart attack.
MOORE: Yes.
KING: The American Diabetes Association reports 75 percent of diabetics will die of a heart attack or a stroke.
MOORE: Really.
KING: Seventy-five percent.
MOORE: I didn't know that.
KING: You're just -- someone who gave you that pearl, right?
MOORE: Yes.
KING: Here daughter died of...
MOORE: This was such a sad story. This is a woman who was 31 years old, young woman, an artist, who was a diabetic, had been since teens. And she was going home to Australia with her mother to have a kidney transplant and her mother was going to donate the kidney. And on the plane, the girl died. Didn't get there in time. Thirty-one years old. This is the kind of thing we can stop with stem-cell research. We can train those cells to become new kidneys.
KING: How close are you, do you think, if this were wide open? Supposing stem-cell went through and there were no problems with it, how close do you think you are to a cure?
MOORE: Well, you see...
KING: What do doctors say?
MOORE: Yes, doctors, better. I don't know the answer to that question, Larry. I don't know.
KING: Do they say "close"? Scale of 10, we're at a seven?
MOORE: Close, and of a magnitude, I think, that will change history. I think people who advocate...
KING: You mean like a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) vaccine magnitude?
MOORE: Yes. Oh, I think even bigger than that. I think the people who advocate for stem-cell research are going to leave a legacy. That's my message to President Bush.
KING: Well, certainly, he appears open to it.
MOORE: Yes, he do does.
KING: There's no decision made.
MOORE: No. And I'm sure once he understands what is involved, he will see, through his heart, that this is the right thing to do. That just as a mother who loses a child in an automobile accident and who now has to decide about donating his or her organs for transplant, I think the same thing has to happen with embryonic research.
KING: We will be right back with more of Mary Tyler Moore and more of your phone calls. This is LARRY KING LIVE. Don't go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW")
DICK VAN DYKE, ACTOR: I think you're a great mother. But there's such a thing as being too great a mother. You're being oversolicitous and overprotective. It could be bad for a kid.
MOORE: Oh, Rob.
VAN DYKE: Now, listen to me, honey. You think about it. I want you to go to that party with me because I love you. I may be crazy, but I think you're the best-looking gal I know. I want to show you off. How about, Laura? Will you give me that pleasure?
MOORE: No.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: That has to be the Academy Awards. What was that?
MOORE: No, I was wearing a very casual turtleneck. Couldn't have been the Academy Awards.
KING: The Emmys?
MOORE: No! I would never dress like that to go to the Emmys.
KING: What was wrong? You looked nice.
MOORE: Well, I did, I thank you very much, but I don't know what it was from. And there you have it.
KING: OK, but it's a red carpet, whatever it was.
MOORE: Yes, right.
KING: Wait a minute. You and I were both at the opening of "The Producers."
MOORE: I don't think I wore blue to "The Producers."
KING: OK.
MOORE: But we were, weren't we? Isn't that amazing?
KING: Yes, we walked in together.
MOORE: Yes, we did.
KING: Worcester, Massachusetts, hello.
CALLER: Hello.
MOORE: Hello.
KING: Hi.
CALLER: Mary, hi. This is Lynn from Worcester, Mass. How are you?
MOORE: I'm fine. How are you, Lynn?
CALLER: Very well. I just want to say thank you so much for all the years of laughter. I think you are one of best comediennes in the world. One of my favorite episode, of course, is Chuckles the Clown.
One of my questions is, though, it's very interesting, in all of the things that you've been through. I have a family member that is both a diabetic and has alcoholism, and I know through having my grandmother pass, due to both, that if something isn't done quickly, certainly this person could die very young.
So I would wonder what your thoughts might be on that.
MOORE: I would get some counseling from somebody, and then probably go ahead with what they call a family intervention, and that is, you bring several of the close relatives -- it could be even friends that are very close to the person -- together, and you sit and talk about what it means to you, her close friends, to see her destroying her life. And you'll be guided by somebody far better than I can guide you.
KING: Alcohol turns to sugar, right?
MOORE: Yes, it does. Yes.
KING: And a lot of alcoholics are in denial, right?
MOORE: Yes.
KING: Intervention worked for Betty Ford.
MOORE: Right. Diabetes are in denial, too, very often.
KING: What do you mean? They don't think they have it?
MOORE: They think, you know, nothing hurts me, and I'm feeling pretty good, so I'm just going to sit in the car here and eat six doughnuts. Me, I did that when I was first diagnosed. Very rebellious.
KING: Columbia, South Carolina, hello.
CALLER: Yes, Mary, hi. This is lovely. What a pleasure. MOORE: Thanks.
CALLER: I'd like to ask you what accomplishments do you take most pride in, personally and professionally?
MOORE: Well, the work that I do for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation certainly. The work that I do for animals and all my work. I love it. Sometimes it turns out very well, sometimes it turns out to be not understood. Or...
KING: Are you very self-critical?
MOORE: I'm very self-critical, Larry. I think that is where a lot of the impetus for my work comes from, because I'm always searching, trying to go deeper, figure it out better than the last time I worked.
KING: Very interesting: I notice the way you watch yourself -- whatever the scene is, you are watching as if, would I do that differently? Can I do that better?
MOORE: Yes, you know what it is? Because now I am able to look at the other half of the screen. I'm really looking at the other people in the show. When they were first on the air, I was always watching myself and being self-critical. Now I can look at Ted Knight and say, he is very funny.
KING: We will be back with our remaining moments with Mary Tyler Moore. We'll ask her what it is like to have what might be every woman's wish, to be married to a doctor. Certainly every mother's wish. Back with Mary Tyler Moore right after this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE, "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It won't work if you are calling me Mr. Grant. Call me Lou.
MOORE: Who -- would that just be for the purpose of this conversation? Or, for all time?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will decide later.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Think you can, Mary?
MOORE: Call you not Mr. Grant?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm glad it's OK.
MOORE: It's OK to say, it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really Mary?
MOORE: Really, Lou.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call me Mr. Grant.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: You can now log on to my Web site, learn my answer to King's Quiz at cnn.com/larryking.
That's a great scene -- Ed Asner, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. You don't know?
MOORE: I don't know.
KING: But you don't party much.
MOORE: It's true, but we have to go to sometimes social-business things.
KING: What is it like to be married to a doctor?
MOORE: Oh, Larry! He is here. He just came over and said, be sure to say the reason you want to have stem cell research is because stem cell can coax the cells from the embryo to become eyelets that are transplanted into the pancreas that will cure diabetes, among so many other things.
KING: What is it like to be married to a doctor?
MOORE: He is very bossy. He is. And he is always telling me what I'm doing wrong about my diabetes.
KING: Does he specialize in anything?
MOORE: He's a cardiologist.
KING: So he gets calls in the middle of the night.
MOORE: He doesn't because he is not practicing in that way anymore. He is now very much involved in health policy and trying to...
KING: Does he miss practice? Does he miss patients sitting opposite him?
MOORE: I think he does and I think he was very, very good at it and I'm sorry he gave it up, but that's all right. It's his choice.
KING: Were -- when you were married, did he get calls late at night when he was practicing?
MOORE: No, not really because he left his fellowship at Mount Sinai, he opened a practice that was about rehabilitation for cardiac patients.
KING: It was getting better.
MOORE: Yes.
KING: Your home is New York?
MOORE: Yes.
KING: Always by preference? Did you live in L.A.?
MOORE: Oh, for many years, all the time we were doing the Van Dyke Show and my show, lived in L.A. But then after the Mary Show went off the air, I decided to move back to New York, I was doing a play on Broadway. And after that closed, I decided I would sit around and see what life is like here.
KING: What's next?
MOORE: Next, I don't know. I don't have any specific project in mind, although there's a play looming that might happen and...
KING: You like theater?
MOORE: I do, I like it especially when it's over. It's just very hard. It is all consuming.
KING: You like the applause.
MOORE: Yes. I love the applause.
KING: When it is 10:00. You don't like 8:00.
MOORE: I don't like 8:00 too much. 10:00 is good, because when it's all over, after I have done it for months and months, I can look back and say, wasn't I wonderful?
KING: I would imagine, it does take a lot out of you, right?
MOORE: It does.
KING: But to hear that, nothing beats applause.
MOORE: No. But do you know, when we were doing the Mary Show and the Van Dyke Show, you had the best of both worlds. You had theater and film.
KING: And a live audience.
MOORE: And an audience of 300 people.
KING: Mary, I thank you very much for coming. What time do you testify tomorrow?
MOORE: Thank -- I don't know, they will tell me though and point me to a room and I will be there.
KING: And your husband will sit behind you and whisper?
MOORE: He'll be the one, yes. KING: It's good to see you, Mary.
MOORE: Good to see you, Larry.
KING: Mary Tyler Moore, she is in Washington for our International Children's Congress. She is the international chairperson of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Tomorrow night, Dominick Dunne will be here with an array of fascinating stories about murder trials he's covered and written about and a terrific new book called "Justice."
We invite you to stay tuned now for "CNN TONIGHT."
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