'Dick Van Dyke' star had 'conflict' with Mary Tyler Moore during hit '60s sitcom: 'They never became close'
“The Dick Van Dyke Show” is still considered one of TV’s greatest comedies, but it wasn’t always a laughing matter when cameras stopped rolling.
Rose Marie, a former child star who further skyrocketed to fame on the hit sitcom, faced some tensions with co-star Mary Tyler Moore. Rose Marie, who passed away in 2017 at age 94, would have turned 100 on Aug. 15.
In celebration, the estate of the late actress is releasing “Rose Marie Sings: The Complete Mercury Recordings & More,” which features 29 classic songs, including rare additions.
Shortly before her death, Rose Marie was the subject of a documentary, “Wait for Your Laugh,” which is currently available for streaming.
Her daughter, Georgiana “Noopy” Guy Rodrigues, told Fox News Digital her mother and Moore never had the chance to get to know each other. Moore passed away in 2017 at age 80.
“Mary was up and coming,” Rodrigues explained. “There was a little bit of conflict between my mother and Mary on the show. Originally, my mother was told that the show was about the writers. And then as the show progressed, it started to go more toward the home life with Dick and Mary.”
“They never became close,” Rodrigues added.
The CBS show ran from 1961 to 1966. It was Moore’s first major TV role. As the glamorous young wife of Dick Van Dyke’s character, she famously traded in classic housedresses for more modern Capri pants. Viewers quickly became captivated by the dreamy, but oftentimes frazzled spouse.
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“Mary was… not really that outgoing as far as [being] personable with everybody because she was new,” said Rodrigues. “She was starting. She was learning. And my mother later admitted… she said, ‘I probably was a little bit jealous because she got a lot of attention and everything.’ As the show progressed, it became more about Dick and Mary [being] away from the office.”
In her last telephone interview before her death, Rose Marie told Fox News Digital that she spent more time with her male co-stars on set.
“Mary Tyler Moore was brand new and very pretty,” she explained at the time. “And everybody went crazy for her. She was very feminine, very charming. I was always with the boys. I was never in that position. I hung out with [show creator] Carl [Reiner] and Dick. Mary was very, very busy becoming a star. Even the first day we were at rehearsal, she said, ‘I’m going to have my first show.’ I would say, ‘Why don’t you wait until we do this one first?’ But Mary, she was very much a go-getter. She learned an awful lot from all of us. And we all helped her.”
The series told the tale of comedy writer Rob Petrie, played by Van Dyke, and his misadventures both in the office and at home. Rodrigues said her mother was the first to be cast.
“At the time Dick Van Dyke was not well known,” she said. “Carl Reiner and [executive producer] Sheldon Leonard cast her first in the show. They said, ‘We’re going to do this show with Dick Van Dyke.’ And she said, ‘What’s a Dick Van Dyke?’ They said, ‘He’s a guy. He sings on Broadway right now. He’s in a Broadway show.’… And then she asked Carl, ‘Who have you got for the second writer?’ And they said, ‘Well, we haven’t cast him yet.’ She says, ‘Why don’t you get Morey Amsterdam?’ That’s how Morey got in the show.”
While the women never bonded, Rose Marie developed a close-knit friendship with Van Dyke, 97.
“Dick was one of the easiest people in the world to get along with,” said Rodrigues. “He was never a problem – never. You could go, ‘Dick, go over there and stand on your hands.’… Off he’d go… We became close with Dick. I became very close with Dick’s daughter.”
“When you think about it, [my mother] was in an office with two other guys [in the series],” Rodrigues shared. “She was making the same salary, and she was equal. Later, Mary had her show. And Marlo Thomas had her show. But that all came later. That didn’t happen before ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show.’ And Marta Kauffman, who wrote ‘Friends,’… said, ‘If I hadn’t seen [the character] Sally Rogers on that show, I wouldn’t be where I am.’ That’s the kind of mark that she made on that show.”
At times, Rose Marie bumped heads with her pal Reiner, resenting that Moore was given more prominence than her on the show. Reiner, speaking in “Wait for Your Laugh,” bluntly pushed back. “I used real strong language,” he recalled. “I said, ‘You both have beautiful legs. They wanna look at her legs.’”
Reiner died in 2020 at age 98.
Rose Marie was nominated for three Emmy Awards during her time on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” The series was nominated for a total of 25 and won 15, The New York Times reported.
After “The Dick Van Dyke Show” ended, so did the residuals for Rose Marie, said Rodrigues.
“That only went on for five years,” said Rodrigues. “One of the things that I insisted that got put in her documentary was that the residuals stop after the five. Because the show is still running and constantly running, people thought, ‘Oh my God, she’s gotta be rolling in it.’ Well, the residual thing in those days is not like how it is now. So after 1965, she never earned a dollar from that show… So many people didn’t know that… So afterward, she wanted to keep working.”
Rose Marie went on to have a recurring role in the second and third seasons of “The Doris Day Show.” She and America’s Sweetheart became fast friends.
“She loved Doris Day,” said Rodrigues. “They really became good friends. I think my mother talked to Doris two days before she passed away. She loved Doris because Doris was so professional. She knew everything that had to be done. She knew the right people, the crew and all of that. And of course, both of them were huge animal lovers. We adopted a dog during ‘The Doris Day Show’ called Scruffy.”
“She loved working with Doris,” Rodrigues continued. “It was a relationship that even years later, they would call, and they’d talk like girlfriends. Doris was living up in Carmel. She would call, or mother would call and say, ‘Hey Dodo.’… It was a marvelous relationship. She so admired her… On her first day on set, she came back and said, ‘Wow, this is fantastic. This is great.’… That’s Doris Day.”
In her lifetime, Rose Marie was proud of playing Sally Rogers, a rare sitcom character at the time who wasn’t “a wife, mother or housekeeper,” she tweeted in 2017. For nearly a century, she also led a career in the theater, radio, nightclubs and movies. She was also a regular on “Hollywood Squares.”
Rose Marie would often claim she had the longest career in entertainment history. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2001.
WATCH:’DICK VAN DYKE SHOW’ STAR ‘NEVER BECAME CLOSE’ WITH MARY TYLER MOORE
During her final telephone interview, Rose Marie told Fox News Digital that today’s comics had changed the industry.
“I think they’re terrible,” she admitted. “Is that blunt enough? First of all, they’re filthy. They all use four-letter words. Being funny is not using four-letter words. Morey [Amsterdam] taught me that. He said, ‘If you have to use four-letter words, you’re not funny.’ And it’s true! They use dirty words for shock value. They’re not funny. I can’t laugh at them… All the great comics are gone… Just pay attention next time and you’ll see what I mean.”
DORIS DAY GIVES RARE INTERVIEW, RECALLS WORKING WITH ‘DICK VAN DYKE SHOW’ STAR ROSE MARIE
Today, Rodrigues hopes the new album will introduce a new audience to her mother.
“There’s a whole group of people who are young and don’t even know who she was, except from television,” said Rodrigues. “‘Dick Van Dyke’ was a big part of her life. She loved it. But it was five years out of her life, which really isn’t that long.”
