One comedy legend is set to receive an award named for another. On June 6, Kristen Wiig will become the inaugural recipient of the Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award. Wiig will receive the award in Los Angeles at the Variety TV FYC Fest.
Kristen Wiig’s work as one of this century’s best Saturday Night Live cast members would probably be enough to merit such an award. Yet near the end of her tenure on the show, Wiig co-wrote and starred in the 2011 classic, Bridesmaids, alongside Maya Rudolph and Melissa McCarthy. She received a lead actress Emmy nomination in 2016 for her work in the miniseries, The Spoils of Babylon. She currently stars in the Apple TV+ series Palm Royale. In April, Wiig returned to SNL to great applause.
The award is the outgrowth of a partnership between Variety and the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative, a nonprofit that supports research to restore and preserve vision in people with diabetes. Moore, who died in 2017 at the age of 80, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1969. Together, the two have launched the “Be a Mary” campaign to raise awareness and support research.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show aired on CBS from 1970-1977. The sitcom starred Moore as Mary Richards, a news producer in Minneapolis. Through her sitcom, as the New York Times put it, Moore “incarnated the modern woman.” Audiences first came to know Moore on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966). She received an Academy Award nomination for her work in the 1980 film, Ordinary People, the directorial debut of Robert Redford.
