The US actress became a household name in the 1960s as suburban housewife Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, where she enjoyed unmistakable chemistry with her co-star.

She and Van Dyke also appeared in several television specials, including a PBS production of the play The Gin Game in 2003.

But it was as Mary Richards, the spirited and comfortably single Minneapolis television news producer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, that she was best known.

She played the character between 1970 and 1977, and through the role she brought audiences one of the first independent career women seen on television.

Speaking in 1995, Moore said: “My life is inextricably intertwined with Mary Richards’ and probably always will be.”

She won seven Emmy awards during her career and was nominated for an Oscar for her 1980 portrayal of a mother whose son dies in Ordinary People.

That same year, Moore’s only child Richard accidentally shot himself, aged 24.