When Kathleen St. Martin—owner of Legacy Saint Jewelry in Minneapolis—was a little girl, she and her mom would spend Saturday nights watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
There were several reasons St. Martin became enamored with Moore. She was funny. And charming. The character she portrayed, Mary Richards, lived in Minneapolis. Playing one of television’s first “career women,” Moore became a role model.
“She was my guide to life as an adult,” St. Martin says. “I thought, If you weren’t going to do things as a traditional woman, that is what it looked like.”
St. Martin admired Moore so much that when she worked in phone sales for a construction company, she used the alias Liz Richards. “I fancied myself as Mary’s little sister,” says St. Martin. “I figured, Who is going to hang up on Mary Richards’ sister?” (In a weird coincidence, she later found out the real-life Moore had a sister named Elizabeth.)
Last year, two of St. Martin’s passions intertwined. After reading in JCK that Sotheby’s would be auctioning Moore’s jewelry, she was so excited, she considered flying out for the sale in New York City on Dec. 5.
In the end, she didn’t go to New York. Still, she participated virtually, winning two of the three items she bid on: a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet and an art deco platinum and diamond ring.
The bracelet was a gift from Moore’s then husband Grant Tinker, and includes a mysterious inscription—“May 31, 1972: Tomorrow is ten.” The word “hopefully” is on the other side. St. Martin believes this could be a reference to the Emmy Awards. That seems like a solid guess: The Mary Tyler Moore Show won four Emmys in 1971, and was nominated in six categories in 1972 (in two categories it was nominated twice). So the math works—except online sources say the Emmys aired on May 14 that year.
As for the ring, St. Martin isn’t sure how the actress acquired it. “We like to think that maybe Mary bought her own jewelry, because of the strong, independent woman she was and she portrayed,” says St. Martin. “So she was ahead of her time with that, too. And she was buying vintage, which is cool.”
While St. Martin sells a lot of estate jewelry, she isn’t sure what she’ll do with the two pieces once owned by her idol. “We want to hang on to them,” she says. “I have been wearing them virtually nonstop.”
However, her company did create a Mary Tyler Moore–inspired collection, with jewels patterned after items sold by Sotheby’s. All proceeds will go to the Mary Tyler Moore Vision Initiative—the star’s diabetes charity, which was also the beneficiary of the Sotheby’s auction.
St. Martin hopes the collection will get attention in her hometown, where Moore—who died in 2017—remains something of a local hero.
“She’s still very much a household name here,” the jeweler says. “People here love anything remotely associated with Minneapolis. There’s a statue where she tossed her hat in the air [in the show’s opening credits]. And people still drive by her house [used in exterior shots].
“She never lived here, but the opening to her show was a love letter to Minneapolis. It showed the lakes, the downtown. It made it looked cosmopolitan, but also a good place to live. She really put Minneapolis on the map.”
(Photos by Kennedy St. Martin, courtesy of Legacy Saint Jewelry)
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