Great casting news: Mary Tyler Moore to join "Lipstick Jungle"

Please. As if I didn't already love "Lipstick Jungle" enough already. Now comes word that the great Mary Tyler Moore will join the series when it returns this fall in a recurring role as Brooke Shields' mother.

Sounds delish!

Mary may be best known for her sunny good girl roles on the TV classics "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show," but she is also expert as a dramatic actress and can pkay a terrific bitch. After all, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as the cold and distant mother in "Ordinary People" and one of her seven Emmys was for her portrayal as an evil woman arranging black market adoptions in "Stealing Babies."

On "Lipstick," Mary will play a retired high-power executive, who fought the good fight for working women in the '70s and '80s and doesn't shy away from giving her daughter her opinion on "how to have it all."

"I'm fortunate to have had a front row seat to the evolution of working women on television," Mary said in a statement. "It's been great fun to watch the strong female characters of 'Lipstick Jungle' go at it week after week. I absolutely adore Brooke and I'm delighted to be a part of a show which is so well written."
Mary's first appearance will be on September 24 on NBC, when the series returns for its second season premiere. She will be coming full circle in a way because "Lipstick" follows the lives and careers of three career women in New York City. In the 70s on her self-titled landmark sitcom, Mary was an assistant producer of a TV newscast and best pal Rhoda (Valerie Harper) was a window dresser. Their eccentirc neighbor Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) wasn't really career-oriented but she did once do a short stint in Mary's newsroom but proved so annoying that she had to be fired!