Throwback Thursday Remembers Robert Moore on The Mary Tyler Moore Show

January 22, 2026
HANK ORSO

Okay, guys, let's talk queer representation on classic TV. I mean, it's one thing to see representation nowadays. No big whoop, though if the current administration has its way, we'll see less and less. Like what's happening in book publishing. But that's another post. Today, yer boy Hank here wants to talk about a moment and an episode of the 1970's mega-hit sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and specifically Robert Moore, the gay actor who played a gay character, with absolutely no fanfare.

"My Brother's Keeper" first aired on January 13th, 1973, and was received with the amount of disturbance and fireworks and rending and gnashing of teeth one might expect for a positive gay character appearing on a widely popular sitcom at the time. Which was none. And that's how it should have been.

If you've never seen the show, or if it's been many years, let me catch you up. The show, which was a critical and audience favorite for most of the seventies, debuted in 1970. It followed the character of Mary Richards, played by Moore, as she makes a fresh start as a career-girl-hopeful in a big new city, Minneapolis. She was a fresh face working for a TV news show, lived alone, dated, fumbled, had terrible parties, and was refreshingly kind but held her ground. Most of the time. She was a quiet feminist, you could say. She didn't burn her bra, but she learned to hold her own against her cantankerous but loving boss, Hugh Grant, played with astoundingly understated comedic chops by the handsome Bear Daddy, Ed Asner. It wasn't a show that hit hard with contemporary issues, like the equally wonderful All in the Family, or that show's spin-off, Maude. But it made its points.

One of those points was a positive light when it came to gay people. Stonewall was only a few years prior, so we were in the nascent stages of the gay rights movement. In the episode in particular, Mary's imperious landlady Phyllis, played by Cloris Leachman, tries to play matchmaker between Mary, a perfect girl, and her visiting brother Ben, a musician from NYC. Unfortunately for Phyllis, Ben hit it off in a platonic way with Mary's upstairs neighbor, her friend Rhoda (Valerie Harper), a loudly outspoken and *GASP* Jewish woman Phyllis refers to as "that awful woman." But Rhoda and Ben start palling around, much to Phyllis's chagrin.

At the climax of the show, at one of Mary's always terrible gatherings, Rhoda tells Phyllis that she and Ben are going to get married. Rhoda loved messing with Phyllis's head. Phyllis goes apoplectic, and Rhoda and Ben have a big laugh when Rhoda explains he's not her type. Well, this sends Phyllis into big-sister protective mode. "WHY NOT? He’s attractive, he’s witty, he’s single—” Rhoda responds, “He’s gay.” Phyllis gets over her shock and is more relieved to hear that Rhoda won't be her sister-in-law!

So why is this so groundbreaking? Because the reaction to the news is taken with such bland acceptance. It's treated as a normal misunderstanding, because that's all it is. It's not a huge transformative coming out; the studio audience doesn't go nuts, and neither does the viewing audience. I remember watching it several years ago when I rewatched the series, and I was even shocked by how normal it all was. Ben's homosexuality wasn't presented as anything more than a simple fact that they all quickly moved on from to get to the punchline, which was on Phyllis.

Ben was played by gay actor and director Robert Moore (no relation to Mary Tyler Moore), and the episode was written in part by Dick Clair, who was also gay. Robert Moore had several Broadway credits and one big screen film under his belt, playing a gay paraplegic alongside Liza Minnelli in Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon. He would have a string of Broadway directorial credits, nominated for five Tonys, through the seventies and early eighties. Most notably, he directed the original off-Broadway production of the gay classic The Boys in the Band for his friend, the playwright Mart Crowley. Unfortunately, he was passed over for William Friedkin when it came time for the film adaptation.

Moore would die in 1987 of AIDS complications, but he left behind a huge body of gay-centric work. And we thank him for his one small contribution to one of the best sitcoms to ever hit the airwaves, playing a gay man with such quiet and funny honesty and truth.

Here is the whole episode. Enjoy!