Mary Tyler Moore & Valerie Harper

Mary Tyler Moore was the star of the iconic "Mary Tyler Moore" show. One of the co-stars of that show was Valerie Harper. Mary and Valerie are the best of friends off-camera too.





By Rick Kaempfer



I wrote about the joint appearance of Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper on the John Landecker show in my book "The Radio Producer's Handbook." The fun part about that interview was that Valerie knew Mary would be on, but Mary had no clue that Valerie would be there....

Mary Tyler Moore was appearing via satellite on a publicity tour. She had no visual contact with us for what was scheduled to be a ten-minute interview. Mary knew that she was going to be interviewed by a man and a woman (John Landecker & Vicki Truax), but that was all she knew. As soon as the interview started, the female interviewer (going by the name of Vicki) started getting belligerent and questioned Mary Tyler Moore’s sincerity. Mary got upset. She started to go after Vicki, until she began to sense that something strange was going on. After a few more seconds, she recognized the voice. It was her good friend and former co-star Valerie Harper, who happened to be in town doing a play. The awkwardness of the first few seconds of the interview led to a truly special interview that Mary probably remembers to this day.

The visual memory I have of that day is the evil expression on Valerie's face. She was really getting into the "character" of Vicki. The real Vicki was sitting right next to her, enjoying the moment silently.