Mary Tyler Moore: TV pioneer, feminist icon and — album cover girl?

1/14

Mary Tyler Moore cemented her status as one of the great television actresses of all time with two timeless hits: “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Moore was born in 1936 in Brooklyn Heights, but her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 8 years old. As a teenager, she aspired to be a dancer and appeared in several commercials at the beginning of her career.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

2/14

Mary Tyler Moore arrives at the Emmy Awards in 2001.

(Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times)

3/14

Mary Tyler Moore accepts her Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award during the 18th SAG Awards show at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in 2012.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

4/14

Mary Tyler Moore attends the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles in 2008.

(Chris Pizzello / Associated Press)

5/14

Academy Award-nominated film and Emmy Award-winning television actress Mary Tyler Moore poses during a 1979 photo portrait session in Los Angeles.

(George Rose / Getty Images)

6/14

Mary Tyler Moore appears with her then-husband, Grant Tinker, at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles in 1966.

(David Smith / Associated Press)

7/14

Moore auditioned to play Danny Thomas’ daughter on “The Danny Thomas Show” but didn’t land the part. However, Thomas later remembered her and recommended her for a role on another sitcom he was producing, “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” based on creator Carl Reiner‘s time as a comedy writer for “Your Show of Shows.” When Moore joined the series, playing Laura Petrie, the wife of Dick Van Dyke‘s Rob Petrie, she was just 23 years old -- 11 years younger than Van Dyke. The role made Moore a star and earned her two Emmy Awards.

(CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images)

8/14

Mary Tyler Moore and then-husband Grant Tinker appear at a Hollywood event in 1966.

(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)

9/14

Moore got her second sitcom, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” in 1970. Moore played Mary Richards, a single TV news producer in Minneapolis, in this popular and critically acclaimed sitcom that ran for seven seasons. The series made stars of many people in its supporting cast, including Betty White, Ed Asner, Valerie Harper and Cloris Leachman. The final episode, which aired in 1977, featured the entire cast gathering for a hug and then slowly shuffling off camera together, still in hug formation.

(CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images)

10/14

In 1969, Moore founded her own production company, which produced “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and its spin-offs, “Rhoda,” shown, and “Phyllis,” as well as many other TV series in the 1970s and ‘80s, including “The Bob Newhart Show,” “WKRP in Cincinnati” and “Hill Street Blues.” She also owned a record label, MTM Records, which specialized in country music.

(CBS Photo Archive / Getty Images)

11/14

Former President Clinton leans in to chat with Mary Tyler Moore, the Rev. Billy Graham and Lauren Bacall at the 75th anniversary gala for Time magazine at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on March 3, 1998.

(Sonia Moskowitz / Associated Press)

12/14

Moore has written two memoirs about her life. In the first, published in 1995, she revealed that she was a recovering alcoholic. In the second, published in 2009, she talked about living with Type 1 diabetes. She also served as the international chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

(Evan Agostini / Getty Images)

13/14

In 2000, Moore testified before Congress, along with actor Michael J. Fox, on behalf of stem cell research. In addition to her diabetes and stem cell work, she co-founded Broadway Barks, a New York City animal adoption event, and founded a center for Civil War studies in a house in West Virginia once owned by her great-grandfather and Maj. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. (Kamenko Pajic / Associated Press)

14/14

Mary Tyler Moore accepts her Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award from Dick Van Dyke at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Jan. 29, 2012.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

By James Reed

Jan. 26, 2017 1:15 PM PT

Before Mary Tyler Moore was a television star on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and later with her own pioneering series, her face (and occasionally curvaceous body) graced the covers of long-forgotten albums of easy-listening instrumental music in the late 1950s.

That little-known fact is bubbling up in the wake of Moore’s death Wednesday. An ambitious working girl who could and did almost everything on the Hollywood road to success, Moore appeared on nearly a dozen album covers for acts such as Raoul Martinez and His Orchestra and the Norman Leslie Orchestra.

The music hasn’t exactly stood the test of time, but Moore’s twentysomething visage has given the LPs some cultural cachet. On eBay, you can snag “Million Sellers” (see Moore in gold lamé) for $9.99 and “Gigi” (see Moore sipping Champagne) for $22.50. If you’re particularly curious, you can buy a bundle of six albums (current bid: $22.27).

Here’s a gallery of Moore’s multiple album covers, many of them for the defunct Tops record label, from “Cha Cha Cha” and “Organ Favorites” to “Dance to the Latin Beat” and “The Roaring ’20s.”

Although she never recorded an album herself, Moore had a decent set of pipes, especially when paired with her beloved co-star Van Dyke.

james.reed@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @jreedwrites.