Mary Tyler Moore

Stefoff traces the life of TV personality Moore from her Brooklyn childhood, early TV appearances, her five-year role on ""The Dick Van Dyke Show,'' her successful return to TV in her own series in 1970 and her three marriages. Contrasting Moore's perky public image with her private life, the author writes, ``She has endured a troubled relationship with her parents, a teenage marriage to get away from home, two divorces, a near-fatal miscarriage, serious bouts with an incurable disease, several humiliating and highly publicized stage and screen flops, the suicide of her young sister, and the death of her only child from a self-inflicted gunshot.'' These tragic events maintain reader interest, even though Stefoff's routine writing style rarely rises above the press-clip sources of this unauthorized biography. Photos. (May)