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Mary Tyler Moore’s Jewelry Is Up For Auction
You can have this jewelry, why don’t you take it?
Actress Mary Tyler Moore and her famous, and controversial, trousers on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” in the ‘60s, left, and a pair of Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co. “Bone Cuffs” owned by the award-winning actress. Moore’s jewelry is going up for auction at Sotheby’s.
New York—Early next month, Sotheby’s will auction jewelry that once belonged to groundbreaking actress Mary Tyler Moore.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1936 and raised in California, Moore rose to fame in the 1960s on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” playing Van Dyke’s wife, Laura Petrie.
Moore played a homemaker on the show but she was allowed to be funny, have opinions and assert herself, which, according to “Being Mary Tyler Moore,” the 2023 HBO documentary on the actress, was almost unheard of at the time.
She also did something else revolutionary as a woman on TV in the ‘60s—she wore pants, fitted capris, to be exact.
It was her next role, however, that made her an icon and inspired generations of women.
From 1970-1977, Moore played Mary Richards on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
Richards was a 30-year-old woman who moved to Minneapolis on her own following a broken engagement and landed a job as an associate producer at a news station.
She was single and, perhaps more shockingly, more focused on her career than getting married.
The Mary Tyler Moore show won 29 Emmy awards in its seven-year run, including three for Moore as Best Actress in a Comedy Series.
All told, she racked up seven Emmys, one Tony Award and three Golden Globes over the course of her career. She also received one Oscar nomination (1981, for “Ordinary People”).
The Screen Actors Guild presented her its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.
Moore died in 2017 at age 80.
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Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1936 and raised in California, Moore rose to fame in the 1960s on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” playing Van Dyke’s wife, Laura Petrie.
Moore played a homemaker on the show but she was allowed to be funny, have opinions and assert herself, which, according to “Being Mary Tyler Moore,” the 2023 HBO documentary on the actress, was almost unheard of at the time.
She also did something else revolutionary as a woman on TV in the ‘60s—she wore pants, fitted capris, to be exact.
It was her next role, however, that made her an icon and inspired generations of women.
From 1970-1977, Moore played Mary Richards on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
Richards was a 30-year-old woman who moved to Minneapolis on her own following a broken engagement and landed a job as an associate producer at a news station.
She was single and, perhaps more shockingly, more focused on her career than getting married.
The Mary Tyler Moore show won 29 Emmy awards in its seven-year run, including three for Moore as Best Actress in a Comedy Series.
All told, she racked up seven Emmys, one Tony Award and three Golden Globes over the course of her career. She also received one Oscar nomination (1981, for “Ordinary People”).
The Screen Actors Guild presented her its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.
Moore died in 2017 at age 80.
Sotheby’s is selling 21 pieces of jewelry belonging to the late actress, including designs from Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co., and Audemars Piguet.
They will be divided up between two sales, Magnificent Jewels on Dec. 5 (10 lots), and the online-only Fine Jewels (11 lots), which opens for bidding today and continues through Dec. 7.
Frank Everett, vice chairman of Sotheby’s Jewelry, described Moore as a passionate collector whose jewelry “highlight[s] her understated elegance” and “mirror[s] the style of the beloved, modern characters she portrayed on screen.”
Mary Tyler Moore’s collection of gold Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co. “Mesh” jewelry includes, at left, an open heart pendant-necklace and a pair of earrings with bezel-set round diamonds and, at right, a “Scarf” necklace, and two pairs of earrings.
A pair of Moore’s Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co. “Bone Cuffs” in silver (pictured at top of article) are estimated to sell for $500 to $1,000 at the online Fine Jewels sale.
Sotheby’s said it is “fitting” that Mary Tyler Moore would own a pair of Peretti’s silver bone cuffs, as they are symbols of feminist empowerment from the 1970s, the same decade in which Moore changed society’s views on independent, working women, and changed the way they saw themselves.
Moore also owned a collection of Peretti’s gold “Mesh” jewelry, which her third and last husband, Dr. S. Robert Levine, described as being reflective of the actress—“very graceful, very attentive to detail, but always in motion.”
Also part of Fine Jewels, the Mesh jewelry is estimated to sell for $4,000 to $6,000.
Moore’s second husband, Grant Tinker, gave her this hammered gold Van Cleef & Arpels cuff and matching ear clips for her 39th birthday in 1975. It’s estimated to sell for $10,000 to $15,000.
Dr. S. Robert Levine gave this gold Bulgari “Monete” necklace to Moore when the pair got married in 1983. Expected to sell for $25,000-$35,000, it features rubies, diamonds, and an ancient Greek coin the pair picked out together at the Bulgari store on Fifth Avenue in New York.
Levine also gave Moore this steel and diamond Jaeger-LeCoultre “Rendez-Vous Classic Night and Day” watch (estimate $4,000 to $6,000). He gifted this to her as her eyesight was deteriorating due to complications from diabetes; the bigger numbers allowed her to tell the time. It is part of the Fine Jewels sale.
While Sotheby’s noted that Moore bought a lot of her own jewelry, the auction includes pieces given to her by Levine as well as her second husband, the late NBC executive Grant Tinker.
Levine commissioned a gold, diamond, and ruby Bulgari “Monete” necklace featuring an ancient Greek coin as a wedding president for Moore in 1983.
Tinker gave her a gold Etruscan-style cuff and matching ear clips from Van Cleef & Arpels when she turned 39. The interior of the cuff is engraved with “Can you believe - 12-29-75” and love “G.A.T.”
Both pieces are part of the Magnificent Jewels sale.
Highlights from Moore’s collection will be on display at Sotheby’s in New York beginning Dec. 1 as part of Luxury Week.
Proceeds from the 21 pieces will benefit The Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative, a nonprofit that seeks to preserve and restore vision in people with diabetes.
Moore was first diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1969 when she was 30 years old. She later became an advocate for diabetes research and served as international chair for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
For more information on Moore’s jewelry as well as other pieces up for sale at Sotheby’s next month, visit the auction house’s website.
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