Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative

‘Hacks’ Star Jean Smart on the One Thing She Has in Common With Deborah Vance and How She Made Up Her ‘Fargo’ Backstory

May 6, 2025

The beloved actress adds Variety’s Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award to the six Emmys and two Golden Globes on her mantle

By Rosemary Rossi

Looking over Jean Smart’s oeuvre since her television debut in the 1979 TV movie “Before and After,” one thing is instantly noticeable — she has not stopped working. But over the last decade or so, momentum has picked up even more rapidly. It’s almost like producers and directors are shouting from the rooftops, “Get me Jean Smart!”

On May 7, the multi-award-winning “Hacks” actress will be presented with the second annual Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award at the Variety FYC TV Fest for her groundbreaking achievements in storytelling and mirroring Moore’s impact on the entertainment industry. Although Smart jokes that the first thing she thought of when she heard of the honor was, “My boyfriend has always been madly in love with her,” her immediate reaction after that was, “My gosh!”

“[‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’] was something else,” she says. “It takes you to a time that we think of as sort of a Golden Age of the sitcoms, and she absolutely epitomized the joy that we all got from these shows, and particularly her shows.”

Moore’s husband, Dr. S. Robert Levine, Founder and CEO of the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative, a non-profit that advances research to preserve and restore vision in people with diabetes, will present Smart with the award.

Unlike the title of her hit Max series, Smart is anything but a hack, having earned every bit of her six Emmy wins (and seven additional nominations), two Golden Globes, three SAG Awards, plus a Grammy nomination and a Tony nomination. And with her upcoming return to Broadway for 12 weeks at Studio 54 in June in the one-woman show, “Call Me Izzy,” her future is just screaming “EGOT!”

“From your mouth to you-know-where,” she says with a laugh.

Although she has been graced with a career that has kept her very busy for more than four decades, the last 10-15 years are particularly notable not just for the quantity of projects, but also the variety of genres showcased in the likes of “Fargo,” “Watchmen,” “Mare of Easttown,” “Babylon” and, of course, “Hacks,“ which has been the gift that keeps on giving.

“I never thought I’d be so happy to be called a hack,” she said earlier this year while accepting her second Golden Globe playing legendary stand-up comedian Deborah Vance, a role she knew she wanted to play immediately after reading the pilot script. “It was all right there. The comedy was obvious, but you could see beyond that, behind her defenses and her darker moments.”

Deborah makes no bones about it, she is a woman who takes charge of her own life — and frequently the life of those in her orbit. “Well, yeah, she is a bit of a control freak,” Smart laughs. “But she’s also — she’s just so lonely. It’s so sad how lonely she is, and she doesn’t even really realize it, and then she doesn’t have to be living that way, you know? But she is kind of fueled by her bitterness and anger. But at the same time, her saving grace is that she sees humor in everything, which is, I guess, the one thing I feel like I have in common with her. I try to do the same.”

When looking over her entire body of work — which is plentiful! — it is abundantly clear that she knows how to choose her roles. You might even say that she’s smart about it. (See what we did there?)

“To be able to choose a role, for an actor, is very rare, and I know how exceptionally fortunate I am to be able to try to be choosy,” she says. “I try to look for something that maybe I haven’t kind of really done before. ‘Fargo’ was one of those projects that I just was so thrilled [about]. I actually had to audition for that. I was thrilled when [creator] Noah [Hawley] offered me that after the audition. Luckily, I don’t haven’t had to do that since.”

Smart says that her “Fargo” role as Floyd Gerhardt, the matriarch and head of the Gerhardt crime family, was a character that she felt like she understood. “I knew that from the outside she appeared to be so many things that weren’t really what she truly was,” she says. “And I had this whole backstory of about her, her childhood and why she was named Floyd … So I had come up with this whole thing about how she’d been ‘the son’ that her father never had but that he wished he’d had, so she did everything with her dad. You know, she hunted, she fished, she was a rancher. She rode horses. She worked hard. He was determined to have a son named Floyd, and he never got a son. So, by God, he still named her Floyd.”

Floyd was just one in a string of many very distinct characters Smart has portrayed. At one point in 2021, she was featured in three shows at the same time in wildly different genres: “Hacks,” “Mare of Easttown” and the animated series “Big Mouth.” And that type of scheduling luck is when it becomes really apparent to those watching and listening to her just how good she is.

“I’m grateful, and I’m not gonna question it. I mean, obviously, if this had all come 20 years ago, that would’ve been nice. But better late than never,” she jokes. “I mean, I think that it would be terrible to really hit it when you’re like 35 or 30, and then people just stop calling and it just goes down, down, down, down, down. So it’s been a very steady sort of upward trajectory, which I am just so incredibly grateful. I can’t explain it because I don’t feel like I’m any different as an actor than I was 20 years ago.”

“Hacks” hasn’t officially been picked up yet for a fifth season — “I’d be kinda surprised if we didn’t” — but Smart has her summer hiatus book for another gig: a return to Broadway at Studio 54 in “Call Me Izzy,” a dark comedy about a rural Louisiana woman. It was sent to her a couple years ago, and she absolutely fell in love with it. But trying to find a time when she could do it was a little tricky.

“Doing a play in New York, it’s a big-time commitment. And it’s a big ask for my kids to come with me and the only time I could really do it was during a summer break, because my youngest is still in school. So it finally worked out this summer,” says Smart. “I can’t wait for people to see it. I just think it’s extraordinary. The writing is so gorgeous. Some of it is so fun and quirky and whimsical, and some of it is tragic. It’s this woman who got married at 17 in rural Louisiana, lives in a trailer park with her husband, and she writes extraordinary poetry. But she has to hide it from him because he’s very abusive and he hates that part of her. … Sometimes you see things like that in marriage, where one person hides their light from the other because it bothers the other spouse, and that’s not really love.”

The show is just her and the audience for a solid hour.

“I’m so excited — and I’m a mildly terrified. Uh, more than mildly,” she laughs. “I just adore this character so much, but it’s 75 pages of just me talking. The longest speech I’ve ever done on stage was 15 pages and a half pages, and I thought that was scary. This is five times that.”

Jean Smart Will Receive the Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award

April 23, 2025

By William Earl

Variety FYC TV Fest returns May 7 in Los Angeles for a day of genre-focused discussions featuring the creators and talent behind the year’s most talked about Emmy contending series. Join us for an exciting star-studded event, complete with engaging panel conversations and a special presentation of the Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award.

The festival kicks off with “Meet the Makers” drama panel, including “The Day of the Jackal” and “Lockerbie: A Search for Truth”, featuring executive producers Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant. The morning continues with a look into thrilling series “Yellowjackets,” followed by an ensemble conversation with the cast and executive producer of the acclaimed hit drama “Matlock”, including Kathy Bates, Skye P. Marshall, Jason Ritter, David Del Rio, Leah Lewis, and showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman.

Creators Michelle and Robert King will join actor Carrie Preston and showrunner Jonathan Tolins to discuss the dual creative worlds of “Evil” and “Elsbeth.”

“Jimmy Kimmel Live” head writer and executive producer Molly McNearney will then give an insider look at the late-night mainstay.

Following a mid-morning networking break, we continue with an engaging panel highlighting the “Women Who Wow: Spotlight on this Season’s Stellar Performances”.

This conversation will feature renowned actresses Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”); Niecy Nash-Betts (“Grotesquerie”); Kaitlin Olson (“High Potential”); Nicole Brydon Bloom (“Paradise”); and Ellen Pompeo (“Good American Family.”)

An in-depth conversation with the team from “Dark Winds” and “Interview with a Vampire” will follow.

Multiple award-winning actress and star of “Hacks” Jean Smart will be presented with the second annual Mary Tyler Moore Visionary Award. She will be introduced by Mary Tyler Moore’s husband, Dr. S. Robert Levine, Founder and CEO of the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative which is a non-profit that advances research to preserve and restore vision in people with diabetes. The award, named in honor of the legendary actor, recognizes groundbreaking achievements in storytelling.

As we transition into the afternoon, we’re excited to present a lively “Meet the Makers” comedy session with funny-men stars, Joel McHale from “Animal Control” and Denis Leary of “Going Dutch”.

A “Behind the Laughs” session will follow with comedy supporting stars including Stephanie Koenig (“English Teacher”); Abby Elliott (“The Bear”); Jane Lynch (“Only Murders in the Building”); Janelle James (“Abbott Elementary”); Poorna Jagannathan (“Deli Boys”); and Matt Bomer (“Mid-Century Modern.”)

Additional “Meet the Makers” comedy panels will highlight fresh new titles like “Étoile”, with actors Gideon Glick and Luke Kirby, and “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” featuring Montana Jordan, Emily Osment and executive producer Steven Molaro.

The unscripted world takes the stage in the final section of the day. “The Challenge” stars Leroy Garrett, Aneesa Ferreira, CT Tamburello, Rachel Robinson will be joined by Bunim/Murray Productions & 51 Minds Entertainment CEO Julie Pizzi. Then, we will dive into glam and strategy of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “The Traitors,” with appearances from “Boston Rob” Mariano and Dolores Catania, with more to be announced.

Conversations will be recorded and published across Variety’s digital & social platforms following the event.

20th Television, ABC, AMC Networks, CBS Studios, CBS, Fox Entertainment, FX Networks, Hulu, MTV, Onyx Collective, Paramount+, Peacock, Prime Video, and Warner Bros. Television are official partners of the event.

New Study Shows That Diabetic Eye Disease is Up, But the Most Severe Forms Are Down

April 17, 2025

Although the prevalence of diabetes-related eye diseases almost doubled since 2014, the rates of most severe forms of the disease have actually decreased, according to a new study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The lead author Brian VanderBeek, MD, MPH, MSCE, an associate professor of Ophthalmology, received an RPB / Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative Physician-Scientist Award, which supported his work.

According to a report by the University of Pennsylvania, the researchers believe that their findings, published in Ophthalmology, demonstrate the adeptness of health care providers in the United States in diagnosing and treating diabetes over the years. At the same time, they believe it could also provide a glimpse of potential vision-threatening diseases lying in wait in the future.

“Our work shows that more than 30 percent of all patients with diabetes now have some form of diabetic retinal disease, which means that the number of people at risk for vision loss continues to grow,” said Dr. VanderBeek. “But our work has maybe also revealed that the most severe forms of the disease are becoming less common, suggesting clinicians may be getting better at treating systemic diabetes.”

Since more than 10 percent of the United States population, 38 million people, are now diagnosed with diabetes, and over 98 million have pre-diabetes—numbers that have been steadily growing for decades—it is vital to obtain a full picture of the risks associated with the disease, including development of diabetic retinal disease that could ultimately lead to vision loss so that health workers and public health officials can accurately assess and address them.

Learn more about the study in the University of Pennsylvania’s news release.

Cassie Maxwell

Meet Cassie Maxwell—diagnosed with T1D at just 18 months old. As a kid, she found comfort in knowing that one of her favorite actors, Mary Tyler Moore, shared this ‘special thing’ in common. Cassie admired Mary so much that she dressed up as her for Famous Americans Day—and even had the incredible opportunity to personally interview her for her presentation.

When Cassie asked what she should wear, Mary’s response was iconic:

“You should wear pants because I fought for us to wear pants.” 👏

A true trailblazer, in every way.

BreaththroughT1D’s Mary Tyler Moore Award

February 11, 2025

New York, Feb. 12, 2025—Breakthrough T1D, formerly JDRF, the leading global type 1 diabetes (T1D) research and advocacy organization, proudly presented awards to seven outstanding volunteer leaders whose impact has pushed the organization’s mission forward. The volunteers were recognized with the awards at Breakthrough T1D’s annual One Conference on Feb. 11, 2025. Award recipients include:

Jordan Amis, Carol and Erwin Lurie Award
Dayton Coles, Dr. Gerald Fishbone Award
Natalie Stanback, Huntsman Family Community Engagement Award
Joseph P. Lacher, Jr., Jim Tyree Award
Shelley and Doug Lowenstein, John Brady Award for Innovation
Carol Oxenreiter, Mary Tyler Moore Award

Mary Tyler Moore Award

The Mary Tyler Moore Award recognizes courageous women willing to take risks to promote positive change. The award is focused on pioneering female leadership that delivers meaningful impact in the T1D community. Breakthrough T1D is proud to honor Carol Oxenreiter’s remarkable contributions to the T1D community and her roles as a founding member of the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative’s Steering Committee and organizer and first Lay Advisory Board Chairman.

Carol’s involvement with Breakthrough T1D began shortly after her daughter, Monica, was diagnosed with T1D at 13 months old. Three years later, the goal to find a cure became even more crucial when her son, John, was diagnosed with T1D at the age of eight.

Carol currently serves as the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative Lay Advisory Committee Chair and as a member of the Breakthrough T1D Global Mission Board and Directors Emeritus. Carol is also a former member of the International Board of Directors, past chair of the Research Committee, and immediate past president of the Directors Emeritus. She has been a valued volunteer in the Western Pennsylvania and Georgia and South Carolina chapters, where she has served in various roles to further the organization’s impact and outreach. She was a founding member of the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative’s Steering Committee, organizer, and first Chairman of the Lay Advisory Board. Her peers recognize her for her tireless commitment to Breakthrough T1D and the quest to find a cure, as a talented speaker who engages audiences with tailored research presentations and a skilled mentor who provides wise counsel with integrity to both volunteers and staff.

Twenty Year Trends in Prevalence and in Incidence of Diabetic Retinal Disease

Ophthalmology Science (January 2025) published a paper titled, “Twenty Year Trends in Prevalence and in Incidence of Diabetic Retinal Disease.” An in-depth review that explores an overview of how the rates of diabetic retinal disease (DRD) and its vision-threatening components (VTDR), diabetic macular edema (DME), and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) among patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) have changed over the past 20 years. The lead author is Brian L. VanderBeek, MD MPH MSCE.

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University of Michigan’s Kellogg Eye Center Annual Report

Personal Experience | Kim Hartman

Preserving an artist’s vision after diabetic retinal disease

For one artist with Type 1 diabetes, losing her vision was her biggest fear. Specialists helped preserve her sight and aim to stop the disease before it starts for others.

December 31, 2024 5:00 AM

Author | Annie Clarkson

Kim Hartman, a talented artist and Type 1 diabetes patient, has always expressed herself through her vibrant paintings and intricate sketches.

But as much as art was her passion, it was also the source of her deepest fear: losing her vision.

Vision issues are a common but serious complication of all forms of diabetes.

Since her diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes as a young adult, Hartman had spent years managing the condition’s daily challenges.

Still, the thought of developing diabetic retinal disease (formerly referred to as diabetic retinopathy) was her worst nightmare.

When vision problems, like eye floaters, began for her, Hartman sought care at Michigan Medicine.

She was referred to Thomas W. Gardner, M.D., M.S., the Scientific Co-Director of The Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative and an ophthalmologist who specializes in diseases of the back of the eye, particularly those caused by diabetes like diabetic retinal disease.

From the moment she met Gardner, Hartman felt a sense of relief.

“He listened to my fears without judgment and took the time to explain everything to me,” Hartman said.

“I didn’t feel rushed or dismissed. Instead, I felt like I had someone on my team who genuinely cared about my health, and someone fighting for something deeply personal.”

Gardner’s brothers have Type 1 diabetes as well, driving his motivation to help others with the condition.

As part of her treatment at Michigan Medicine, Gardner connected her with the multidisciplinary Metabolism, Endocrinology & Diabetes team, which includes diabetes education specialists and nutritionists, to ensure her overall diabetes management was optimized.

“Diabetes is a systemic disease, the eye part is just one manifestation of it,” Gardner said.

“For ophthalmologists to get the best eye outcome, we want our care to be comprehensive, taking the whole patient into account, to make sure all systemic risk factors are minimized. That’s a real advantage we have here at Michigan Medicine because we have outstanding diabetes specialists.”

Treating diabetic retinal disease

While Hartman managed her condition with regular monitoring and lifestyle adjustments, Gardner completed laser treatments to correct bleeding blood vessels and hemorrhaging in the eye, common symptoms of diabetic retinal disease and culprits behind vision loss.

Although the disease is typically treatable at this stage, these laser treatments often result in lasting vision loss, even as they stop the disease from worsening.

“We treat diabetic retinal disease now at the equivalent stage of kidney failure,” Gardner said.

Hartman’s treatment was a success and Gardner says she has a good prognosis for the future of her eyesight.

“As an artist and parent, my vision is everything. When I was diagnosed with diabetes, I feared losing not just my sight but a part of who I am. Thanks to early intervention and the right care, I’ve been able to preserve my vision — and, with it, my passion for creating. I’m endlessly grateful for the research and treatments that made this possible.”

A vision initiative

The Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative at Michigan Medicine, founded after the actress lost most of her vision from diabetic eye disease, aims to advance research and treatments for diabetic eye diseases.

The hope is to get to patients before retinal bleeding, like what Hartman experienced, begins.

“We put out the fire for Kim, but we want to prevent the fire,” Gardner said.

“As part of an international initiative, there are clinical studies and analysis of the eyes of people who had diabetes who have donated their eyes to better understand it. We’re working hard to change the whole understanding of the disease and help people like Kim be able to retain their vision.”

“The point is to help Kim and, in doing so, help other people who have diabetes know that they can keep good vision through getting their eyes examined and taking the best possible care of their diabetes,” Gardner said.

Patients like Hartman can also benefit from and contribute to the work of the U-M Elizabeth Weiser Caswell Diabetes Institute, a world leader in Type 1 diabetes research.

CDI researchers seek to prevent, treat, and cure the burdensome complications that diabetes can cause, including efforts to prevent and restore vision loss. 

By continuously working with and learning from patients and partners like Hartman, CDI will continue to lead innovative and collaborative research that focuses on prevention, treatment, and cures for Type 1 diabetes and its devastating complications.

“Being at an academic medical center like Michigan Medicine made all the difference for me,” Hartman said.

“They have the latest technology and access to research and education that most places don’t but, more than that, they have a collaborative approach that incorporated my needs and preferences.”

Mary Tyler Moore Shocked Viewers With an Iconic Green Dress That’s Still Trending Nearly 50 Years Later

By Marissa Muller

DECEMBER 29, 2024, 12:20PM

It’s been nearly 50 years since Mary Tyler Moore’s green dress shocked viewers on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” But what was created as a punch line, in the 1975 episode “You Try to Be a Nice Guy” — where Moore encourages a former sex worker to branch out into fashion design — has enduring appeal.

Today marks what would have been Moore’s 88th birthday — she passed away in 2017 from cardiopulmonary arrest after contracting pneumonia — and ahead of her birthday, Google searches for Moore’s green dress spiked. There are ample search results for the green dress on social media, where users on TikTok and Twitter continue to share and discuss the dress decades after its debut. Even half a century after it premiered, the dress still feels current.

That’s because the dress was ahead of its time. The amount of skin it showed was bold in 1975, when the boundaries of women’s fashion — in real-life, the workplace, and on TV— were shifting. “She designed it especially for me,” Moore says in the episode of the dress, to which Ted Baxter demands his wife Georgette gets him a glass of water. “It’s very nice,” Georgette says in passing to Moore, adding, “It sure shows off your skin.”

The clothes were a main character on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” and the green dress was a star. Moore’s show was not only feminist in narrative, it was also feminist in fashion — using her wardrobe as a vehicle to model how women didn’t have to adhere to older societal norms, and could blaze their own paths in the workplace.

Moore’s wardrobe was also rooted in realism, which was novel for TV. Costume designer Leslie Hall, who has shaped the visual identity of “Bewitched,” had Moore repeating outfits and creating new ones from mixing pieces, which had never been done before on TV. Hall also secured the first fashion product placement for TV, lining up an exclusive partnership with Evan Picone, which outfitted Moore throughout the seasons and setting the stage for all of the fashion placement partnerships on TV that followed.

As for the green dress, it has continued to live on beyond “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” — and set the stage for iconoclastic dresses to come. The ladder-like cutouts bring to mine the Versace safety pin dress Elizabeth Hurley famously wore in 1994 alongside Hugh Grant at the premiere of “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

The idea of a revealing green dress turning a cultural page also conjures another unforgettable Versace moment: Jennifer Lopez’s plunging, high-slit silk chiffon dress she wore to the 2000 Grammy Awards — the very one that inspired Google Images.

Meanwhile cutout dresses were one of the biggest style takeaways from 2023 and, this year, 2024. Last year labels like Celine, Alexander McQueen, Gucci and many more outfitted stars in whimsical cutout gowns, from Dua Lipa and Hunter Schafer to Cardi B and Vanessa Hudgens. This year, Tyla and Lourdes both embraced the cutout trend, among many other celebrities. Not to mention, cutouts were a breakout trend at the 2024 ESPY Awards.

Read the article here.

RPB-MTM Vision Physician-Scientist Award Recipient: Leo A. Kim, MD, PHD

The Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative is proud to announce that Leo Kim has received the Research to Prevent Blindness | Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative 2024 Physician-Scientist Award, which focuses on cutting-edge retinal research to expand relevant knowledge and to develop methods to preserve and restore visual function in people with DRD. Dr. Kim is the Monte J. Wallace Ophthalmology Chair in Retina at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and is currently working on using mRNA as a therapy in the eye. He states, “This therapy is the first to deliver mRNA-based treatments inside the eye. We were pleasantly surprised that we could use this approach inside the eye without causing excessive inflammation. We hope that these early findings can usher in new treatment options for PVR and other eye diseases.” To learn more about Dr. Kim and the study, please visit the link below: https://www.ophthalmologytimes.com/view/mrna-therapy-shows-promise-for-treating-proliferative-vitreoretinopathy