Moore and Moore Tears

’Tis the season to be bright and merry and joyful—or to fake it till you make it. That’s how many feel about the hustle and bustle and forced frivolity of this particular time of year. For the gimlet-eyed film lover who may be feeling just a wee bit of anti-holiday sentiment, I recommend the following antidote to those inane Lifetime holiday romances and even the stalwart classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Here's a holiday movie that was excoriated by critics and flopped at the box office, likely due to its relentlessly downbeat subject matter. Have you ever seen the one about the last wish of a dying girl with just a very short time to live (see movie title for exact prognosis)? This is Six Weeks (1982).

Surprisingly, it’s far from a total disaster. Directed with sensitivity by Tony Bill (My Bodyguard), the handsome actor who squired Goldie Hawn to that wild party in Shampoo and won an Oscar for coproducing The Sting, this film has grown on me over the years. Its heart is in the right place, and time has been kind to it.

True, Six Weeks is a curiosity in many ways. A film starring Moore and Moore—no relation, of course, but the pre-film publicity made much of it. Mary and Dudley. Two comic geniuses playing against type in a tragic melodrama—released on December 16, 1982, just in time for a good Christmas cry.

Mary Tyler Moore as Charlotte Dreyfus

Mary Tyler Moore is cosmetics tycoon and doting mother Charlotte Dreyfus, who is determined to give her ailing daughter a life of purpose and meaning, no matter what it costs. 

Channeling the brittle, edgy and high-strung vibe she had recently perfected in Ordinary People (earning her a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar nod), Mary is a little bit scary here. The high humor of her salad days in the sitcom universe has all but evaporated, and we are left with a chic, glamorous but very serious and unhappy woman. But we understand why.

MTM’s onscreen persona changed dramatically as she matured—there are three distinct phases: Sweet and emotional Kennedy era wife Laura Petrie gave way to smilingly determined career girl Mary Richards, then moved on to tense and very complicated women such as Beth in Ordinary People and real-life criminal matriarch Sante Kimes in Like Mother, Like Son. But who was the real Mary? Probably all of the above, but we’ll never know.

British comedian and musician Dudley Moore was well known to UK TV audiences for his frequent partnership with satirist Peter Cook, but gained international fame flying solo in the U.S. comedy classics Foul Play and Blake Edwards’s 10. 

Dudley Moore as Patrick Dalton

Here, as Patrick Dalton, a naturalized U.S. citizen running for Congress, we see flashes of the Dudley Moore charm and humor that made him a box office favorite in all those zany 1980s comedies. But his exuberance too, of course, is sobered by the sadness of the film’s grave situation, as he befriends the adoring young girl who joins his campaign and then discovers her tragic secret.

Tyler Moore and Moore make an awkward Mutt and Jeff couple and were criticized as having zero chemistry. Indeed, tall Mary towers over diminutive Dudley and there is little va va voom in their coupling, but this is not meant to be a hot and heavy romance. It’s a love story of three soulmates who have a very short time together, a brief moment of joy before the tragedy that pulls them apart.

Katherine Healy, a real-life Olympic skating champion (who ironically pretends awkwardness on the ice in a scene at Rockefeller Center) and fledgling ballerina, plays the role of young Nicole Dreyfus. To date, this was her first and last film role, which is unfortunate, because she is effective here. 

Katherine Healy as Nicole Dreyfus

Though she, the film and her costars were savaged by the critics at the time, Healy is completely believable as the self-possessed and mature-beyond-her-years thirteen year old who has a lot of living to do before leukemia and the fates spirit her away. Today, Healy continues to teach dance, as she has done for many years.

Veteran supporting actress Shannon Wilcox has one of her best roles as Moore’s long suffering wife, who is obviously used to playing second fiddle to her politician husband’s demanding life and frequent business trip absences (and briefly mentioned previous extramarital affair). 

Granted, the film is somewhat maudlin and overly sentimental, but what tearjerker isn’t? It’s also filled with implausibilities that make it difficult to suspend disbelief—in what universe does even a poor little rich girl get the chance to dance in a New York City ballet and preside over the mock wedding of her mother to her new idol and hero?

"I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss...the child."

Admittedly, MTM’s angry, sobbing meltdown as she reveals that her daughter is dying of leukemia, and the harrowing scene in the subway where the girl collapses (after her triumphant performance in The Nutcracker) do go over the top. (But why are those my favorite parts?)

The scene where mother and daughter dance together is lovely and memorable.Though no prima ballerina herself, Mary performs with grace and skill, using the dance as the opportunity to shower unrepressed affection upon her daughter during this shared moment of joy. MTM fans will recall that she started her showbiz career as Happy Hotpoint, the dancing elf of appliance commercials, as well as her musical moments with TV hubby DIck Van Dyke and tap dancing in the elevator with Julie Andrews in Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Healy and Moore

Coincidentally, some of the tragic elements of the story—debilitating illnesses and the loss of a child—resonate with the personal lives of the principals. Mary had just recently suffered the loss of her only son, Richie, in a 1980 handgun accident. She was a lifelong insulin-dependent diabetic who also braved a decades-long bout with alcoholism. But she endured and continued to work on and off until her death at the age of 80 in 2017.

More than a decade after Dudley Moore made Six Weeks, he would be plagued by a series of serious health issues, including heart disease and Parkinson’s, sidelining him from show business until director Barbra Streisand took a chance and offered him a small supporting role in The Mirror Has Two Faces. Sadly, Streisand reluctantly fired him when it became clear he was not up to the task, and he was replaced by Austin Pendleton. He died in 2002. 

Two great stars—who could ask for anything Moore?

The earnest performances make this movie watchable, and are accompanied by a moving original piano score (composed by Dudley Moore himself) designed for eliciting tears. So if you are in the mood for good cry (and a few rolls of the eye)—as many of us are during the holidays!—you may actually enjoy Six Weeks as much as I do.

A Thoroughly Pre-Modern Mary

On January 25, 2017, Mary Tyler Moore passed away at the age of 80. In both of her unforgettable TV roles, as adorable housewife Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show and as self-sufficient “woman on her own” Mary Richards on her eponymous Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore radiated a persona of cheerfulness, optimism and determination despite a personal life with more than its share of challenges, including a lifetime managing Type 1 diabetes, a bout with alcoholism and the loss of a child. Small wonder we’ve loved Mary for more than 50 years—she truly was an all-American girl next door with “spunk,” as Lou Grant would say.

The 1967 film Thoroughly Modern Millie was Mary’s big-screen debut, after more than a decade of television work culminating in a five-year run with Dick Van Dyke. After Laura Petrie and before Mary Richards, Mary Tyler Moore seemed to be struggling to find a new career direction. During this awkward in-between period, she starred as Holly Golightly in a disastrous Broadway production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s opposite Richard Chamberlain, and even did a stint as leading lady to Elvis Presley in his last scripted film Change of Habit (she played a nun and he played a doctor, famously if not believably!).

Julie Andrews as Millie Dillmount: "The happiest star of all!"

Accepting a costarring role opposite Julie Andrews in a movie musical, playing a naive and virginal young woman of the 1920s, seemed to suit her squeaky-clean, girl next door image. (Born-again virgins must have been all the rage in the mid-1960s, with Doris Day handing her crown as the #1 Box Office Star over to everyone’s favorite nanny Julie Andrews who, incredibly, had played a beloved governess in not just one but two iconic blockbuster movies back to back.)

Thoroughly Modern Millie itself is something of an acquired taste if you’re not an aficionado of gay camp, but if you are, this one is a gem. The plot is silly and outlandish (and very politically incorrect), and the music is quaint and old-fashioned (indeed, many of the tunes were real 1920s hits, like “Jazz Baby” and “Baby Face”). Produced by the legendary Ross Hunter (Pillow Talk, Midnight Lace, Madame X), the production design is lavish and over the top, but its great cast is what makes this movie such good fun.  

Mary Tyler Moore as Dorothy Brown: "It's Miss Dorothy..."

With her clear-as-a-bell soprano (with its fabled four-octave range) and briskly efficient vitality, the brassy Dame Julie dominates the proceedings in the title role of Millie Dillmount, but generously shares the spotlight with her costar Moore, who plays the sweet and guileless Miss Dorothy Brown. (Next to the mannish, short-haired Andrews, the lovely Mary appears even more vulnerable and feminine.) Julie and Mary have good chemistry, especially in the scenes where they must tap dance together to keep the old elevator running in the Priscilla Hotel for Young Ladies where they both live.

Beatrice Lillie as Mrs. Meers: "So sad to be all alone in the world..."

A large part of the farcical plot, dealing with a Chinese white slavery ring that spirits away young women who are “all alone in the world,” is patently offensive today. In 1967, it was still socially acceptable to describe Asians as Orientals and paint them as suspicious, mysterious and “inscrutable” characters. In 2002, the film was adapted into a semi-successful Broadway musical, keeping the “Oriental” plotline.

As Mrs. Meers, the Chinese proprietress of the Priscilla Hotel (not to mention a human trafficking organization on  the side), rushing around in a kimono and high black wig adorned with chopsticks, British stage star Beatrice Lillie makes a wacky villainness indeed. But if you can get past the racial implications, Lillie’s expert clowning, deadpan delivery and unerring comic timing are nevertheless a marvel to behold, and the comedienne neatly steals every scene in which she appears. But there’s no way around the discomfort of watching the cringe-worthy stereotypes that Asian actors Jack Soo (Barney Miller) and Pat Morita (Happy Days, The Karate Kid) are forced to play here.

Carol Channing as Muzzy Van Hossmere: "Raspberries!"

If Miss Lillie were not enough to delight fans of camp styling, the film also stars the legendary Carol Channing as a freewheeling bon vivant named Muzzy Van Hossmere—looking like a glittering diamond-and-sequin studded Muppet, braying, croaking and lisping her way into an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress!  Having lost her iconic stage roles of Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly on film to Marilyn Monroe and Barbra Streisand, respectively, the character of Muzzy is basically a composite of Dolly and Lorelei and allowed Channing the opportunity to emblazon her uniquely zany charisma onto celluloid for posterity.

The cast is rounded out by the square-jawed John Gavin (Psycho, Imitation of Life, and a Ross Hunter favorite) who spoofs his own image as a handsome but wooden leading man, and British actor James Fox (The Servant, Remains of the Day) who dances well and sings with a perfect American accent, leading the slap-happy “Tapioca” number with vigorous, goofy charm. (Gavin, now in his mid 80s, went on to serve as Ambassador to Mexico under Ronald Reagan, and Fox has continued to work steadily in films and television well into his late 70s.) 

Dorothy and Millie with "Silly Boy" Jimmy (James Fox)

Miss Dorothy and her love interest Trevor Graydon (John Gavin)

"Tapioca, everybody!"

Old-fashioned musicals like this enjoyed their last gasp of popularity in the mid-1960s, with My Fair Lady named Best Picture of 1964. 1965’s The Sound of Music also won the Best Picture Oscar and occupied the spot of top moneymaking film of all time until Jaws and Star Wars supplanted it a decade later. (Millie, directed by George Roy Hill, garnered seven Oscar nods, including Miss Channing's; it won the award for Best Musical Score.)

But Millie, though the 10th highest grossing movie of that year, was the harbinger of the death of the Hollywood musical. The next year, Julie Andrews herself would tumble from her box office perch with the disastrous Gertrude Lawrence bio-musical  Star!, and Rex Harrison’s Dr. Doolitle would also prove an ignominious failure. Paint Your Wagon flopped miserably, and even Hello, Dolly starring Streisand and helmed by Gene Kelly, did not meet box office expectations. Yes, Oliver! did win the Best Picture Oscar in 1968 in a mediocre film adaptation that beat out the likes of the groundbreaking Rosemary’s Baby and Planet of the Apes, but the Academy then as now was slow to move with the times.

Mary and Julie in rehearsal

But appearing in a movie musical seemed just the ticket for Mary Tyler Moore, who had first come to prominence as a dancer on live TV commercials (as the spritely and aptly named Happy Hotpoint for the home appliance manufacturer), and had held her own in musical interludes with costar Dick Van Dyke (who, of course, also partnered brilliantly with Julie in Mary Poppins). Though Miss Mary sings nary a note in this film (maybe that’s one reason why her Breakfast at Tiffany’s was such a disaster?) she is obviously having a ball in Millie’s spirited “Tapioca” and “Le Chaim” dance numbers.

After the MTM show left the airwaves in 1977, Moore’s greatest film triumph was playing against type as high-strung midwestern mother who loses a child in Robert Redford’s directorial debut Ordinary People, for which she earned her only Best Actress Oscar nomination. But she retained a passion for song and dance, and in the late 1970s even hosted a short-lived musical variety show (with a cast of regulars that included, incredibly, Michael Keaton and David Letterman). In the 1982 film Six Weeks, she played a former dancer and showed off her balletic prowess and always-lithe figure.

Moore, Gavin, Andrews, Fox, Channing and Lillie

In Thoroughly Modern Millie, Mary acquits herself beautifully in the role of Miss Dorothy, proving herself a versatile entertainer and gifted comic actress. (She did after all learn the art of comedy from masters like Van Dyke and Carl Reiner). It’s a lark to see Mary having so much fun, doing what she loved to do, frolicking with a talented ensemble cast, in a soufflé-light film that has become a camp classic.

Elvis Kicks the Movie Habit

Have you seen the one where Mary Tyler Moore plays a nun opposite Elvis Presley as a doctor? More of a curiosity than a movie classic, Change of Habit (1969) has some surprisingly entertaining moments, and marked a turning point for both its iconic stars.

By the time he made Change of Habit, Elvis Presley had starred in 30 films, the lion’s share of them puerile, formulaic vehicles designed to exploit his manufactured rock star image for commercial gain. Ironically, his film career had basically killed his record sales, as most of the music in Elvis’s films was studio-manufactured pablum that he could barely stand performing. (To me, Elvis on screen is like the male Doris Day...trapped by a stereotypical image and one-dimensional, cookie-cutter film roles, his talent and versatility rarely fully realized.)

Elvis Presley as John Carpenter

At the beginning of his film career, Elvis had longed to be taken seriously as an actor. Indeed, in his 1956 movie debut in the sentimental western Love Me Tender, he had been compared to James Dean. Strong performances in the early films including Loving You, Jailhouse Rock and the Clifford Odets drama Wild in the Country gave way to a decade of mindless Technicolor fluff. Though there were some momentary flashes of fun and brilliance in films like Blue Hawaii and Viva Las Vegas, Presley’s dramatic promise was never fulfilled.

By the late ’60s, Elvis was disenchanted with both his film contract at MGM and his music, both controlled by his longtime manager Colonel Tom Parker, and he had already begun to put his foot down and change the trajectory of his own career. Most recently, Elvis had taken hold of the artistic reins of a Christmas TV special he had been signed to do, and transformed it from a traditional holiday concert into his groundbreaking rock ‘n roll comeback special, performing before a live audience for the first time in years.

The doctor is in!

Change of Habit would offer a similar change of pace for Elvis’s movie image, though it’s still undoubtedly a star vehicle. For a light, G-rated comedy, the movie would touch on some sensitive and timely subject matter including poverty, heroin addiction, autism and rape, with some fairly frank dialogue and situations as well (a young girl is described as a “bitch,” and the well-dressed nuns out of their habits are mistaken for high-priced hookers.)

Elvis plays Dr. John Carpenter, an inner city doctor at a free clinic in a rough neighborhood who welcomes the help of three young nurses, who unbeknownst to him, are Catholic nuns. Of course, Elvis’s doctor also strums a guitar and sings, and our first glimpse of him is surrounded by young people grooving to his edgy rendition of “Rubberneckin.’” (Though he had to continue in a musical vein to bolster the film’s commercial viability, Elvis made sure that at least a couple of songs in the film were hip and up to date.)

Mary Tyler Moore as Michelle

In his last film role, Presley acquits himself nicely, bringing heart and charm to his role of inner city physician, displaying a real chemistry with his female costar as well as with the neighborhood kids he treats at the clinic. The Elvis charisma and iconography are still apparent, though, and the Christ-like symbolism surrounding him is hard to miss as the aptly named “Carpenter” is photographed under a stained glass window (and a bright Hollywood halo around him!) while performing a rousing rendition of “Let Us Pray” to a packed church crowd during the rock ‘n roll mass finale.

As he now turned to rekindling his passion for live performance, Elvis would never act again, although he appeared as himself in two MGM-released documentary concert films, Elvis: That’s the Way It Is and Elvis on Tour, and seriously considered but ultimately turned down producer Barbra Streisand’s offer to play the fading, drug-addicted rock star in the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born (a role perhaps too close to home).

Sinful thoughts, perhaps?

Change of Habit also marked a transition period for Mary Tyler Moore. After years as America’s TV sweetheart playing the adorable Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore was having trouble finding a new niche. After the cancellation of Dick Van Dyke, Mary had experienced her first resounding flop on Broadway in an ill-fated musical adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s opposite TV’s Dr. Kildare himself, Richard Chamberlain, and played a supporting role in the movie musical Thoroughly Modern Millie starring Julie Andrews. Change of Habit would be Moore’s last theatrical film for many years, just before finding her sweet spot back in the world of television.

Mary Tyler Moore revealed she was not exactly thrilled at the prospect of being the female lead in an Elvis movie, but her costar’s unfailing politeness, humility and work ethic helped make it a positive experience. She found Presley easy to work with, charming, sensitive and considerate, and admitted she had underestimated his acting ability.

Barbara McNair and Jane Elliot

Edward Asner

As Sister Michelle, who has a crisis of faith when she falls in love with the charismatic Dr. John Carpenter, Mary gives a solid performance, and she’s photographed beautifully. But it would be in her next big screen movie 11 years later in which she would enjoy her greatest cinema triumph, for the role that would earn her an Academy Award nomination in Robert Redford’s Ordinary People.

Though Change of Habit is made enjoyable largely by the chemistry and star power of Elvis and Mary Tyler Moore, the leads are ably supported by a likeable and talented cast including stunning actress/singer Barbara McNair (who unfortunately doesn’t get to sing a note here) and Jane Elliot (someday to become a long-running soap opera villainness) as Sister Michelle’s cohorts. Ed Asner (soon to team up with you-know-who in a new sitcom) is perfect in his small role as a wise and kind police officer.

Between Change of Habit and Ordinary People, of course, Mary Tyler Moore would turn the world on with her smile and the brilliantly written and acted ensemble TV series that bore her name. But remember, she turned Elvis on first, and was his final—and a quite formidable—costar.