Hollywood is filled with small crooks: stars that boast on red carpets and end-of-evening talk shows on set souvenirs. Bryan Cranston left with the Walter White pork cup of “Breaking Bad”; Ariana Grande has raised a pair of “wicked” prosthetic ears.
One could assume that Mary Tyler Moore would have liked the hat of the opening titles of her successful series of the 1970s, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”. In what can be the most famous gel in television history, the character of Mrs. Moore, a Sunburst from the Midwest, named Mary Richards, eliminates her Tam-O’-Sunter Tufted and, in full thick from the pedestrian traffic of Minneapolis, throws him towards the sky-an image as purely decalcient as Hollywood has ever produced. The moment was windy by “scrubs” and “The Simpsons” and immortalized bronze on the launch site. In a sequence of opening title which was forever modified throughout the seven seasons of the show, the hat was a constant.
So: How did she manage to keep it?
“Well, you have to remember: she owned the company,” said her husband slowly, S. Robert Levine. “I think someone put her in an envelope for her.”
Fairly fair. As MTM eponymous of MTM Enterprises (the production company behind the 168 episodes of the 1970-77 race of the show), Ms. Moore did not have to enter the costume service after the nightfall to claim her piece of history. But she also did not treat the woolen cap as a piece of conversation or a hunting trophy: she did not, for example, brought it out during parties.
