The Dick Van Dyke Show was one of the most influential and groundbreaking television
comedies to ever hit the airwaves.
It aired on CBS from 1961 to 1966 with a total of 158 episodes spanning five seasons.
The show was the creation of the legendary producer Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van
Dyke as television comedy writer Rob Petrie.
His wife, Laura Petrie was played by Mary Tyler Moore.
The series mainly centered around the couple's home life, but a great deal of the programs
also took place in Petrie's workplace.
One of the key characters that Petrie often interacted with at work was Sally Rogers,
another television comedy writer who has been described as a woman who went 'toe-to-toe'
in a man's world.
Rogers was played by actress Rose Marie, and while she certainly got her fair share of
screen time, she would later admit that she was jealous over how much focus was on her
cast-mate Mary Tyler Moore.
Yes, just like many other popular comedy television shows, behind the scenes, there was quite
a bit of drama on the set of the groundbreaking sitcom.
Join Facts Verse as we investigate why Rose Marie felt like she wasn't given the attention
that she felt she deserved.
You might think that The Dick Van Dyke Show was all laughs, but the truth is, it wasn't.
Mary Tyler Moore Was A Newcomer When She Was Brought On
Dick Van Dyke's co-stars Morey Amsterdam and Sally Rogers, who respectively played Buddy
Sorrell and Sally Rogers, were both veterans of the entertainment world when they were
hired on.
Mary Tyler Moore, however, was a fresh face in the highly competitive television industry.
Moore, who would later be given her very own sitcom bearing her name, passed away in 2017.
Before she was brought on the Dick Van Dyke Show, she had only previously done a few commercials
and danced on stage.
She had played a receptionist on the drama series Richard Diamond, Private Detective,
but the only part of her that the audience ever saw was her legs.
Van Dyke noted in his 2011 memoir My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business that Moore
initially didn't show much promise as an aspiring comedian, but she surprised him by how quickly
she took to it.
Van Dyke said that he never had seen a transformation as pronounced as hers – and hasn't ever
since.
Rose Marie Was Very Jealous Of Moore
While everyone else seemed to be 'Ga-Ga' over Moore, Rose Marie was far less taken by her
co-star.
She had previously been told that the show would revolve mainly around the comedy writers'
room at Petrie's place of employment, but once Moore had shown that she was a force
to be reckoned with, more and more of the series was devoted to showing off her wits.
In an article that was printed by the Hollywood Reporter just weeks before Marie's death in
2017, she was quoted as saying that she had been told when she was hired that the focus
of the show was going to be on her and Dick's characters.
She was under the impression that she was going to be the primary co-star.
But as the show progressed, she began to notice that a lot more attention was being given
to Petrie's home life.
When she made this realization, she was admittedly disappointed.
All she wanted was to work more, but now it seemed like Mary Tyler Moore was the new star
of the show, and she didn't like that one bit.
Marie would even share that the situation was more difficult for her because Moore was
younger and prettier than she was.
'I'll admit it', Rose wrote, "I was jealous of all the attention that she was getting".
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And don't go anywhere just yet.
Keep watching to learn about Rose Marie's nine-decade-spanning career and how she responded
to sexual harassment on the set of the 1954 film Top Banana.
Marie and Moore Remained Friends
In that same Hollywood Reporter essay, Marie added that Reiner thought that Moore's legs
were a significant draw to the program.
In an almost juvenile way, Marie went on to remark that both her and Moore had great legs,
but the only ones that Reiner, his network executive buddies, and the men in the audience
wanted to look at were Mary's.
Clearly, she resented Moore for her looks and perceived attractiveness and felt like
she had drawn the short end of the straw.
The Dick Van Dyke Show went on to run for five seasons and helped launch Moore's follow-up
sitcom.
Although she and Moore never hit if off very well, Marie told the media a few years before
her death that she and her former co-star still remained friends.
Evidence of this friendship fact came to light when a note sent by Moore to Marie in 2000
was shared by Rose's daughter on Twitter.
In it, Moore said 'like it or not, you're my friend'.
Rose Marie Still Had A Prolific Acting Career
Marie got her start in show business as a child actor during the silent film era.
She enjoyed early success under the stage name Baby Rose Marie.
When she was an adult, she became one of the first major Hollywood stars to embrace their
given name.
In addition to her acting work, Marie was also known for her distinctive singing voice.
When she was 5 years old, she recorded a Vitaphone record titled Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder.
From 1930 to 1938, Rose made another 17 recordings.
Her first significant record hit store shelves in 1932 and featured Fletcher Henderson's
orchestra as her accompaniment.
Marie's 1932 recording of the song 'Say That You Were Teasing Me' became a national hit.
In 1960, Marie co-starred in the sitcom My Sister Eileen.
The following year, she was brought in to play Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show.
She followed that role up by playing the character Myrna Gibbons on two seasons of The Doris
Day Show.
After making minor appearances on shows like The Monkees and The Hollywood Squares, Marie
performed on three episodes of NBC's The Dean Martin Show.
In the 70s, Marie appeared in the police drama series S.W.A.T in the recurring role of Hilda.
In the 90s, Marie was given another recurring role playing Frank Fontana's mother on the
CBS sitcom Murphy Brown.
For the remainder of the decade, she continued to make sporadic guest appearances on shows
such as Wings and Caroline in the City.
Rose Marie Faced Sexual Harassment
In 1951, Marie starred opposite Phil Silver in the hit Broadway Musical Top Banana.
She reprised her role three years later in the critically claimed film adaptation.
Marie would later reveal that she would have been in more musical numbers if it weren't
for the fact that she had publicly refused the sexual advances of the Top Banana's producer,
Albert Zugsmith.
The incident happened after she had sung the song 'I Fought Every Step of the Way', which
had several boxing references.
After she had run through the scene, Zugsmith approached Marie and told her that he could
show her a few 'positions' – and by that, he didn't mean boxing positions.
At first, she laughed it off, thinking that the man was joking, but then she realized
that he was serious when he told her that the 'picture could be hers' if she gave in
to his advances.
Once she figured out that Zugsmith wasn't just clowning around, she told him off in
no uncertain terms.
Towards the end of her life, Marie said that the it was the only time that she had ever
experienced sexual harassment in show business in her nine-decade spanning career.
After Top Banana, Marie appeared in a theater production of the play Bye Bye Birdie in 1965
in Dallas, Texas.
Between 1977 and 1985, Marie toured with her co-stars Rosemary Clooney, Margaret Whiting,
and Helen O'Connell in the musical revue 4 Girls 4.
In 2010, Marie was a celebrity guest host for the comedy play Grandmas Rock which was
broadcast on California's KVTA and KKZZ radio stations.
Rose Marie's Private Life
In 1946, Rose married trumpeter Bobby Guy.
The couple would remain happily married until Guy's death in 1964.
They had one daughter together, TV producer Georgiana Guy-Rodrigues.
Although their relationship was presented in the media as romantic, Marie had a platonic
relationship in the 70s with Pussycat Theaters co-owner Vince Miranda.
In her old age, Marie embraced the changing times and was very active on social media
– she especially took a liking to Twitter, where she frequently expressed her support
for women who had suffered from sexual harassment just as she had.
Rose Marie passed away at her home in Los Angeles in the Van Nuys neighborhood on December
28, 2017.
She was 94.
Marie's former Dick Van Dyke Show co-star Mary Tyler Moore died at the age of 80 at
Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut, on January 25, 2017.
Dick Van Dyke is still alive and well at the ripe old age of 96.
Just last year he told Today's Al Roker that he doesn't think that he will ever retire
from acting.
His most recent credit was in the 2022 documentary film 'The 90s Club'.
Before that he made an appearance in the 2018 film Mary Poppin's Returns.
Well, that about wraps up this video, but at this point, we'd love to hear from you!
What are some of your fondest memories of The Dick Van Dyke Show?
And do you think that Rose Marie was justified in her feelings of jealousy about Mary Tyler
Moore?
Let us know in the comments.
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