She went on to play the groundbreaking role of Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore show from 1970 to 1977, where she portrayed a single career woman working in a Minneapolis TV newsroom determined to make a success of herself.
It won 29 Emmys, a record that stood for a quarter century until Frasier broke it in 2002.
The actress died in a Connecticut hospital in the company of friends and her third husband, Robert Levine, her publicist Mara Buxbaum announced, adding: ‘Mary will be remembered as a fearless visionary who turned the world on with her smile.’