She called herself a "funny straight woman," and that was part of it. There was her spunkiness, her niceness, her grace under pressure. But there was more.
A decade younger than my parents she was still part of that generation, a generation that's vanishing and that I miss more every day. And one of the things I miss most about them is their self-deprecation. They just didn't take themselves as seriously as we do.
Moore said she was reluctant to be a symbol of women's liberation, and tried not to think about the 50 million people watching her on TV. A photo that accompanied the obit showed her mimicking a statue of herself, hand upraised, right before she doffed her hat and threw it into the air.
(Photo: People.com)