Mary! In Ordinary People

Her son did not overdose. It was a gunshot wound.

So the guy misremembered...

I'm only doing this because a vigilant DLer once corrected me for the same mistake:

It's "Buck never would have..."

[quote]r2 So the guy misremembered...

Buck never would have BEEN misremembering!

Mary's sister od'd.

I believe one or both of MTM’s parents were alcoholics, so it makes sense her sister had substance abuse issues, as well.

Her brother died of cancer at 47. She and her husband, a doctor, tried to help him, at his request, die peacefully of an overdose of painkillers and morphine, but he survived for three more months. A lot of painful family stories.

Mary did a stint in the Betty Ford Clinic, r7. which was for alcoholism and not because she has 'Spunk'

Poor woman had way more drama and angst than her public would even have thought possible. :(

She was heartbreaking in that movie. I see there’s a doc on streaming about her - maybe I’ll watch. Never knew she had such a life. I thought Mary had a happy life - success. & all that

Like Carol Burnett, her sunny disposition was a cover for a sadder childhood/life.

She looks worn out in “Chuckles Bites the Dust” (the hair didn’t help) but looks good in that final season.

Her young husband was her mother’s doctor, wasn’t he?

Her only son died back east and her husband at the time, Grant Tinker, took the call, but let Mary sleep until morning California time, one last night of peace before the news. Her last husband was a her cardiologist. She was blind at the end because of diabetes but made it to the MTM reunion on Hot in Baltimore. Her big blank eyes!

Robert Redford should be commended for getting that performance from Mary.

<- I think he just had to say, "ACTION". Mary was channeling someone she knew, maybe her mother.

Mary was channeling herself

I just watched it again today. Her performance was devastating. When Conrad hugs her in the end and she is just frozen...heartbreaking.

Once and for all, this is [italic]the scene[/italic], the one in which Beth shrieks at Conrad [bold]"Buck never would have BEEN in the hospital."[/bold] It needs to be this exact sequence of words. "Buck would never..." is no substitute.

Mary herself said that she was more Beth Jarrett than Mary Rogers.

^Richards

MTM's son died of a gunshot accident AFTER filming was completed - around the time it was released.

And DL gets the quote and inflections wrong every time.

It's not "BUCK never would've been in the hospital."

It's "Buck never would've BEEN in the hospital."

By placing the emphasis where she did, she's being explicit that Buck Jarrett would never have been as weak as Conrad to have attempted suicide after losing a brother.

As r21 wrote, her son died almost exactly a month after the film premiered, OP.

Betty White lost her husband a couple of months after. Betty used to tell the story of calling Mary at the hospital where Allan was and both of them breaking down and wondering where everything went wrong.

As cold as Mary was rumored to be, she did seem to have some very close friends (Betty, Bernadette Peters) and she found true love with her third husband.

One of the most heartbreaking and touching things I ever read was about the death of MTM’s son.

Apparently she was traveling so Grant Tinker got the late night call informing him that her son was dead.

He waited until the next morning to call her. Waiting up all night dreading the call.

When he was asked why he waited he said because it would be the last peaceful night she would ever have and he couldn’t take it away from her.