She turned the world on with her smile.
With a carefree toss of a black beret - into the downtown Minneapolis winter wind - Mary Tyler Moore captured the hearts of millions of TV viewers.
That opening scene from her hit 1970s sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, cemented an image in our minds that would never fade away. Moore was the girl next door, the colleague at the next desk, the neighbor in the apartment just below. When her ensemble sitcom ended, it was with a big group hug.
That's what we'd all like to give Moore one last time.
One of the most beloved television actresses of the 20th century, Moore died Wednesday according to her longtime publicist, Mara Buxbaum. She was 80, and had fought a long battle with diabetes.
She played two cute and perky characters that forever marked her career: housewife Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and single girl Mary Richards. And even though she would try to break that image with other roles through the years, those roles forever touched TV audiences.