From left, Betty White, Gavin MacLeod, Ed Asner, Georgia Engel, Ted Knight and Mary Tyler Moore in the final episode of âThe Mary Tyler Moore Show.â  When asked if there was a souvenir from her long career that she was particularly proud of, she pointed not to the trophy cases, but to the wall.  “I think the M,” she said. It was the large letter familiar from the apartment of Mary Richards, her character on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” the popular and pivotal 1970s series.  Ms. Moore had agreed to watch an episode of the show with me to see what memories it stirred, an apt exercise in a television season notable for new female-centered sitcoms and stars like Zooey Deschanel (“New Girl”) who have cited the earlier show as a touchstone.  The M is goldish in color but apparently not solid gold. “We did a retrospective, and they wondered whether or not they could have the M,” Ms. Moore recalled. “And I said, ‘Sure.’ I couldn’t imagine what could go wrong.”  What could go wrong, it turned out, was the exchange between a prop handler and a truck driver. “They dropped it, and it shattered into about four different pieces,” Ms. Moore said. “This is the original, glued back together.”  The M was given a shout-out in one of Ms. Moore’s most recent television appearances, a funny cameo last year on her friend Betty White’s sitcom, “Hot in Cleveland.” Ms. White’s character has landed in jail, and her cellmate turns out to be Ms. Moore. “What’s with the big M” on the wall over her bunk, Ms. White asks. And jailbird Mary replies, “Stands for murder.”  That M was merely painted; Ms. Moore admitted she’ll be reluctant to let the original leave the safety of her office again. Its fragility seemed fitting somehow, earlier in my visit Ms. Moore, who is 75, had talked about her own fragility, a consequence of Type 1 diabetes.  “I’ve been a diabetic for about 35 years now, and I’m one of the very lucky few who has managed to live that long without having major problems,” she said. But, she added, “I do have problems with my eyes, one eye in particular, and if I fall, I generally break a bone.”  About the falling: It’s made a bit more likely by the presence here of four dogs. With her vision problems, she tends to trip over them. But they’re not going anywhere; animals have been right up there with diabetes on the list of Ms. Moore’s causes. (She and Bernadette Peters organize Broadway Barks, the annual pet-adoption event in Shubert Alley.) One dog in particular, a friendly, face-licking pit bull named Spanky, is earning his keep. “He has, as with some dogs that have been written about, the ability to sense when things are off in their owners, their masters, whatever we’re calling them in this day and age,” she said. “He can tell when my blood sugar is dipping low.”  Ms. Moore also had a run-in with a brain tumor last year, but one that she says was exaggerated in some quarters.  “Any time you mention the brain, it terrifies people,” she said. “There were those who delighted in spreading the rumor that I have brain disease, or some other really gripping, nonpleasant situation. But I was very fortunate.” What she had, she said, was a meningioma, a small tumor on the lining of the brain, removed without incident.  We also talked about a side of her career — her film work — that few people think of because of her tremendous television success, first with “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and then with her own series.  One film she is particularly proud of that might not spring immediately to mind, she said, is “Miss Lettie and Me,” a 2002 television movie about a bitter spinster surprised by a visit from a young relative. “That really gave me a lot of joy and a sense of juiciness in that when she comes on the screen she’s a woman in her 80s,” she said of her character. “And with the help of a rather inspired makeup artist, we were able to pull that off.”  The film that stands out, of course, is “Ordinary People,” the Oscar-winning 1980 drama directed by Robert Redford. Ms. Moore said that Mr. Redford had reservations about casting her as the icy mother Beth Jarrett because she was so thoroughly identified with her comic TV roles. But, she said, he had also wondered “what the dark side of Mary Tyler Moore was, and could she pull this off.”  “And I did all but jump up and down and scream: ‘Yes, I can. I know this woman. I grew up with her.’ ”  “I was thinking of my own family history and how we missed the mark of being everything that I’m sure people thought I was,” she continued. “Because I had, though nothing that would raise your eyebrows. I had problems with my father, in that he expected more from me than I was able to give. I did not do well in school, and that was a big disappointment to him.”  But, she said, her father, George Tyler Moore, who died in 2006, eventually got over that.
Mary Tyler Moore reflects on her career, on the big and small screens, as she prepares to receive the Screen Actors Guildâs lifetime achievement award on Sunday.