Mary Tyler Moore Honored with Lifetime Achievement Award

Renowned actress Mary Tyler Moore will be receiving the Screen Actors Guild’s 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award, the group announced Thursday.

Moore, 74, will be presented the Award – the SAG’s most prestigious accolade, which is given annually to an actor or actress who fosters the “finest ideals of the acting profession” – on January 29, 2012, during the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

In addition to her impressive acting career, which kicked off when she was 23 and cast as Laura Petrie, wife to Dick Van Dyke, Moore is an active humanitarian, particularly involved in the battle to research and fight diabetes – a disease that she suffers from herself.

Ken Howard, the SAG national president, said of Mary Tyler:

“[Moore] won our hearts as Laura Petrie and Mary Richards, our respect as her Production Company became synonymous with quality television, our awe as she tackled difficult subject matter in film and on Broadway, and our admiration she turned her public recognition into a catalyst to draw attention to critical and deeply personal health and social issues. She truly embodies the spirit behind SAG’s Life Achievement Award, and we are honored to proclaim her as its 48th recipient.”

Besides her forthcoming Lifetime Achievement honor, Moore has also received multiple Emmys, a Tony, and even had a statue in downtown Minneapolis dedicated to the character she made famous on the show that shares her name.

Check out the following clip from The Mary Tyler Moore Show:

via Star Pulse