Before He Died, Mary Tyler Moore Names the 5 Actors She Hated the Most – HT
It gave me an appreciation for humor. It made me think and feel what’s funny. Um, I appreciated humor in others. I wasn’t a class clown or anything. I didn’t try to be funny. But when Hollywood adored Mary Tyler Moore as America’s sweetheart, her smile made millions believe she had no enemies. But before she died, she revealed something almost no one could believe.
There were five actors she truly despised. Some of them were her own co-stars smiling beside her on camera while tearing her down behind the scenes. Was it just minor disagreements? Or was it arrogance and jealousy at play? Join us as we uncover the real story behind these conflicts and you’ll understand exactly why she hated them so much.
Number one, Dick Van Djk. For decades, the world believed Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Djk were the perfect duo. Two icons defined an entire era of American television. But behind the polished image was a painful truth Mary only shared in her final years. Dick van Djk was the one colleague who left the deepest wound.
Their conflict didn’t begin with ego or jealousy. It began with alcohol. Dick Van Djk privately battled alcoholism throughout the early 1960s, long before he publicly admitted it. Mary was forced to work beside a man whose alcohol-induced unpredictability often disrupted entire days of filming. Glenn Corbett later recalled her exact words.
I adored him, but I couldn’t trust him. Not when he walked onto the set smelling like whiskey. One of the worst incidents happened during a shoot in 1964. Dick arrived late, slurring slightly but insisting he was just tired. During a complex scene that required tight comedic timing, he stumbled forward, knocked over a prop table, and shattered a ceramic lamp. Scripts dropped.
Crew members pretended not to look at Mary. She stared at the floor, clenched her jaw, and whispered to the assistant director, “I can’t work like this anymore.” Those words revealed a breaking point she never expressed publicly. What made it worse was Dick’s alternating charm and emotional distance.
One day he was affectionate and fatherly. The next he was cold, aloof, or visibly hung over. Mary hated unpredictability and his behavior made her feel unprotected, unsupported, and professionally embarrassed. She confided to friends that working with him felt like walking on thin ice every morning. Despite the tension, she never erased him from her heart.
The two repaired their relationship late in life, speaking warmly of each other in interviews, but the truth remained. Among the five people she disliked, Dick Van Djk was the one who hurt her the most because he mattered the most. Number two, James Garner. The moment Mary Tyler Moore met James Garner, she felt something she rarely experienced with co-stars.
Irritation. Not the subtle kind. The kind that hits instantly, like walking into a room and sensing someone has already judged you. Garner radiated easy charm on screen. But off camera, Mary saw a man who hid sharp cynicism behind a Hollywood smile. And that cynicism, she later admitted, made working with him feel like dodging invisible punches.
Their tension erupted during one of their earliest collaboration meetings. Mary proposed a small adjustment to a scene, just a shift in tone to make the moment more authentic. Garner leaned back in his chair, smirked, and pushed his script off the table with the back of his hand. “Sweetheart,” he said. “Leave the thinking to the writers.
” Mary sat frozen, cheeks warm. She didn’t respond because she knew any reaction would be twisted into oversensitivity. Instead, she waited until after the meeting and quietly told a friend, “He talks to women like their furniture.” That comment explained everything. Garner’s casual dismissiveness was habitual.
Mary valued respect more than praise, and he gave her none of either. He cracked jokes about television actors being second tier, mocked performers who rehearsed too hard, and once told Mary that emotional preparation was a waste of time in comedy. To Mary, his flippant attitude felt like an insult to the craft itself. There was no reconciliation later in life, no warm reunion, no public acknowledgement of mutual respect.
They simply drifted apart, and Mary never expressed interest in crossing paths again. According to Glenn Corbett, her final verdict was simple and unwavering. Talented man, terrible colleague. Number three, Rosemary. Did Mary Tyler Moore and Rosemaryie ever truly get along? Or were they battling from the very first season? With these two women, the tension crackled beneath every joke, every scene.
and Mary, who rarely spoke ill of colleagues, later admitted that Rosemary was the one who made her feel targeted in her own workplace. From day one, Rosemary treated Mary like an intruder. She had been a star for decades, a seasoned performer with a loyal fan base. So, when the audience suddenly gravitated toward the young, stylish newcomer, Rosemary’s smile tightened and her words sharpened.
Mary once told a friend, “She didn’t just dislike my success, she resented my existence. The worst incident came during a rehearsal in 1963. A reporter visited the set, asking harmless questions about the cast dynamic. When he complimented Mary’s comedic timing, Rosemary spun toward him and said loudly enough for everyone to hear.
” Timing? She’s learning on the job. Don’t mistake youth for talent. The room shifted instantly. Mary forced a polite smile, but later confessed that moment felt like being slapped with a microphone. Every remark landed like a small cut. Mary hated confrontation, so she absorbed the tension quietly, channeling the discomfort into perfection on screen.
They remained civil in public for decades, even appearing together at reunions, but the warmth was manufactured. When asked privately if they ever mended the rift, Mary’s reply was gentle, brief, and final. We worked together. That’s all. Number four, Ted Knight. Ted Knight didn’t just frustrate Mary Tyler more. He drained her.
That was the word she used, drained. So, the problem was always emotional volatility. Mary never knew which version of him she would meet the moment she stepped onto the set. Some days Ted was warm, eager, almost childlike in his enthusiasm. But on others he arrived tense and defensive, convinced the world was conspiring to undermine him.
Mary believed his insecurity was so intense it became a weapon, directed at anyone who unknowingly triggered it, including her. Glenn Corbett recalled the moment she finally confided, “I’m tired of tiptoeing around his feelings. It’s exhausting.” One particular rehearsal exposed the depth of their conflict.
The director offered a small note, simply asking Ted to soften the delivery of a punchline. Ted froze, shot a glare across the table, and slammed his script down so hard the pages burst across the floor. Then he pointed directly at Mary and shouted, “Everyone’s judging me, especially her.” Mary didn’t flinch, but her silence spoke for her.
She hated scenes like that. Ted’s emotional spirals affected the entire cast, but Mary carried the weight more than anyone. She was the lead. And when Ted spiraled, she often had to pause her own process to stabilize his. That responsibility made her resent him deeply. Not as a person, but as a colleague whose instability turned every shooting day into a gamble.
Their relationship never fully recovered. Even after the Mary Tyler Moore show ended, they maintained a polite distance, each aware of the others wounds. Ted passed away in 1986, long before Mary shared her private perspective. She never attacked him publicly, but in private, she admitted one painful truth.
He made the work harder than it had to be. Number five, Richard Chamberlain. Richard Chamberlain was the kind of actor who filled a room before he even spoke. And Mary Tyler Moore felt the weight of his ego from the first minute they worked together. There was no warmth, no curiosity, no attempt at camaraderie.
His confidence was sharpedged and theatrical. Mary sensed instantly that he saw her not as a partner, but as someone beneath him. Their conflict began during a made for TV drama early in her career. Mary wasn’t yet the powerhouse she would become. She was still building her confidence. Chamberlain, already a rising heartthrob with fame from Dr.
Kildair, seemed to enjoy reminding everyone that he outranked them. It made Mary furious because his habit treated her contributions as disposable. During a scene discussion, Mary suggested a small emotional beat to deepen the moment. Chamberlain didn’t even look at her. He waved his hand as if shoeing away a fly and muttered, “Your part isn’t important enough to change anything.
” The dismissiveness stung harder than the words. Mary later explained, “It wasn’t the line he said. It was the look in his eyes like I didn’t belong in the room. In another rehearsal, when Mary asked the director a question about blocking, Chamberlain sighed loudly, stood up, and joked to a grip nearby.
She’ll understand acting one day. The grip didn’t laugh. No one did. The air thickened. Mary held her ground, smiling politely, but inside she felt the sharp heat of humiliation. She was young, but she wasn’t weak, and she never forgot these words. Unlike the other conflicts in her life, this one never softened.
Chamberlain never apologized, never acknowledged the tension, and never behaved as though anything had happened. Mary didn’t seek closure. She simply avoided him forever. When asked years later if she would work with him again, she answered instantly, “No, some lessons don’t need to be repeated.
” So, now that you’ve seen the five actors Mary Tyler Moore secretly hated, which story shocked you the most? Do you think she was justified in holding those grudges, or were these just the scars of early Hollywood pressure?