The Execs
James L. Brooks, Creator/Executive Producer
Allan Burns, Creator/Executive Producer
Ed. Weinberger, Producer
(Ed. is the guy in the middle of the photo)
Ethel Winant, Casting Director
Ethel Winant did the casting for The Mary Tyler Moore Show for most of the years it was in production. At the time she began her MTMS tasks in 1970, Ms. Winant was head of casting for CBS. She worked with James Brooks and Allan Burns, and because she was a network representative, had the power to decide who would or wouldn't play a part. The procedure usually worked something like this: Ethel would line up people by telephone to come in and "read for the part", and everyone came in and read for Brooks, Burns, and herself. They saw hundreds of people, and according to her, "Jim and Allan were so nice...everyone who came in walked out thinking they had the part!"
"I read the first script and I loved it. The characters were wonderful." Almost immediately, she knew who she wanted to play alongside Mary. "I clearly knew that Cloris [Leachman] was Phyllis" and she wanted Gavin MacLeod for Murray. Ted Knight was doing one-line parts, and at the time MTMS was being cast, he was being considered for a part on another show. Ethel had him come in and read for Ted, and made sure he was cast. While Brooks and Burns wanted a comic to play Lou Grant, Ethel wanted an "actor". Edward Asner was eventually hired. She remembers the challenges of casting of Rhoda Morgenstern: "We didn't have Rhoda cast just a week or ten days before we were going to shoot. I was really in trouble. We just couldn't cast it; it was such a difficult role. I had my department in New York looking at everybody there and my department in L.A. was doing the same. And if anybody looked good, I'd either fly to New York or fly them to L.A." "I was going to the theater every night in the hope that something would happen. And finally one night I went to see the first act for the second act I had arranged to go to another theater. I had to cover all these plays. And in that first play I saw Valerie Harper. She did a sketch and I thought, 'Oh my God, she's perfect.'" But the trouble didn't end there. Valerie's reading with Mary was "a miracle, [but] there was a feeling that she was too young, pretty, and sophisticated for the role." It was suggested that Valerie frump herself up for the second reading, everyone loved her, and she became Rhoda.
Ethel Winant has gained a reputation as one of the greatest casting director/producers in TV history. Born in the farm town of Marysville, California in 1922 to Jewish parents, she was raised by her mother (her father died when she was very young), who early on exposed her to the arts. She frequently visited San Francisco, and was entranced by the theater. She enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, not intending to study drama, but instead law or medicine. She was a member of the Thespians at Berkeley, and did a lot of behind-the-scenes work, scenery painting and stage-managing. She took what was to be a year off from school to scope out her options in the professional theater, and never went back. After serving at the warehouses of Lockheed Aircraft riveting P-38's during World War II, she launched her career doing dictation for a literary agent who was doing script revisions by Tennessee Williams. It was here that she learned how to interpret and analyze scripts for television. Ethel hung around the set of the live drama Studio One, and "eventually people started asking me to fetch coffee for them." Her big break came on a Sunday. An actor didn't show up, and she called an actor named Frank Overton (who in his short career played a number of distinguished roles, including Heck Tate in To Kill a Mockingbird). Then people started wondering about her...a coffee girl who was now casting parts! It was then that she became a casting director.
Ethel Winant's long list of casting credits includes such televisional gems as The Twilight Zone, Playhouse 90, and Hawaii Five-O. She cast the likes of Yul Brynner, Charlton Heston, and James Dean in many roles. She claimed a special Emmy for Playhouse 90, a Humanitas Prize, a Crystal Award for Women in Film, and other distinguished awards and honors. She was the first woman to become a network vice president. She became legally blind in the 1980's, and attended a Braille Institute for one year. After she mastered the language, she also taught at the institute. Winant lived at the Motion Picture Retirement Home in Los Angeles at the time of her death in 2003. She remained semi-active in the industry in her later years, developing new shows for Turner Entertainment Network and doing a number of interviews for TV documentaries.
Grant A. Tinker: President of MTM Enterprises.
Grant Tinker, Mary Tyler Moore's second husband, was the President and founder of MTM Enterprises. Many remember him not for his connection to MTM, but as a programming executive for NBC during the early 80's, at a time when that network was in a seemingly permanent recession. The success of such stellar shows as Cheers, The Cosby Show, and Hill Street Blues can in large part be credited to Tinker, one of the most influential 'behind the cameras' figures in TV history.
Grant Tinker was born in 1925 in Stamford, CT, and spent his formative years there. He attended Dartmouth in the mid 1940's (he's casually admitted that in those days, it was no arduous task to get admitted there!) and joined NBC's executive training program in 1949. He then went on to work for the advertising agencies Benton & Bowles and McCann Erickson. Around the same period, these and other advertising agencies were tunneling in on management of television networks. In the early 1960's, he returned to NBC as programming executive, then left to join Universal in Hollywood. He met Mary Tyler Moore on the set of The Dick Van Dyke Show just after she'd separated from her first husband in 1961 . The story goes that he asked her for a dinner date, she refused, then he immediately returned and asked her for a weekend at a friend's out-of-town residence. She politely declined both invitations, later admitting that it was love at first sight. They eventually got together and married in Las Vegas later that year.
In 1969, when NBC decided to give Mary her own show, Grant decided that she should have her own production company, and thus began MTM Enterprises (the name 'GAT' Enterprises was also considered). As president and CEO, Grant created an exceptionally open atmosphere, allowing for the creative talents of all concerned with the show to flourish. As MTME president, he was responsible not only for shaping the executive branch of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but also for association with the network, and in turn, the show's sponsors. Tinker fought many of the early battles with the network over casting and story ideas. To name just two of the battles Tinker won, when the network voiced concern about content of the episode "Support Your Local Mother", Tinker ensured that the episode was made as written by Jim Brooks and Allan Burns...and the next spring, they claimed their Emmy for it. It was also Grant Tinker who resisted network president Mike Dann, who told him to "fire those clowns" (the 'clowns' being Brooks and Burns). He claims to have attended nearly all the taping sessions for Mary's show. On Friday nights, Grant Tinker would make his rounds to Bob Newhart, Mary, Rhoda, and other shows being produced on the lot. In 1972, The Bob Newhart Show became MTME's first 'other' undertaking. By the end of the 1970's, MTME had produced Lou Grant, The Betty White Show, St. Elsewhere, Rhoda, Newhart, and The White Shadow. In 1981, after his divorce from Mary Tyler Moore, he left MTME and returned for his third (and most productive) stint at NBC. "Leaving jobs in which I was doing well in order to try something entirely new has been a lifelong habit," he says.
Since his retirement around 1987, Grant Tinker has appeared as panelist and guest speaker at major universities and elsewhere. His informative autobiography, "Tinker in Television", co-written with Bud Rukeyeser was published by Simon & Schuster in 1994. Three of his four children (Michael, John, and Mark Tinker, all from his first marriage) have worked in the TV industry as producers.
Stan Daniels, Producer
(Stan is the guy on the far right)
Treva Silverman: Executive Story Consultant/Writer
Bob Ellison: Producer/Writer
David Davis: Producer
David Lloyd: Executive Story Consultant/Writer
Marjorie Mullen, Script Supervisor
Marjorie Mullen was the script supervisor for The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Her responsibilities included monitoring the timing and continuity of the scripts. Sometimes a few extra lines were needed to flesh out scenes that ran long, and vice versa, and Marge made sure the changes were made. When retakes of certain scenes were required, she made sure the action matched up and that the continuity wasn't broken. Marge had this exact same job on The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961-66.
According to Van Dyke Show writer Sam Denoff, Marjorie Mullen was one of that show's greatest assets. She kept a log book called "Marge's S.O.S.". The clever volume contained various jokes, one-liners, and gags that Carl Reiner and the writers came up with during story conferences, which somehow or other couldn't be suitably worked into a particular script. Her goal was to work all those lines and jokes into "some other show" (S.O.S.) Marge also served as a gauge for humor content. During rehearsals, Marge stood by the sidelines and laughed/grimaced appropriately. Reportedly, the Van Dyke cast started asking her if she thought certain dialogue was funny or not.
In 1969, she script-supervised the feature film Support Your Local Sheriff (starring James Garner and Joan Hackett). Feeling that she could work her Van Dyke magic again, Grant Tinker and Mary hired her on in 1970.
In the fifth season of MTMS, Marge made her directorial debut with the episode You Can't Lose Them All. Of course, the MTMS directorial reigns belonged to Jay Sandrich, but Marge also aptly covered Ted's Tax Refund, Ted and the Kid, and What's Wrong with Swimming? during his weeks off. All four display her competence...and no wonder! She'd been watching the cast's every move from the beginning.
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