Emmy Award-winning actor Mary Tyler Moore, who portrayed the roles of a suburban housewife and feminist, died at the age of 80 in Connecticut, United States, on Wednesday. The actor died with her friends and husband, Dr S Robert Levine, by her side, her representative said, according to Reuters.

Moore had been suffering from heart and kidney problems and diabetes. She also had a benign brain tumour removed in 2011, her friends said.

During her career, she bagged seven Emmys and was nominated for an Academy Award for Ordinary People in 1981. Her roles came to represent American womanhood, particularly her character Mary Richards on the hit TV programme The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

“She only wanted to play a great character, and she did so. That character also happened to be single, female, over 30, professional, independent and not particularly obsessed with getting married. Mary had America facing such issues as equal pay, birth control, and sexual independence way back in the 1970s,” said Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, the author of Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And All the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic.

The character influenced the roles of women in future sitcoms and performances of actresses, including Jennifer Aniston, Debra Messing and Tina Fey, The New York Times reported. In 2012, Moore was conferred the Screen Actors Guild lifetime achievement award. She also became a proponent for diabetes research and animal rights.

Robert Redford, who had directed her in Ordinary People , said her “energy, spirit and talent created a new bright spot in the television landscape and she will be very much missed,” Reuters reported.

In 2012, when Moore was asked how she would like to be remembered, Reuters quoted her as saying, “As a good chum. As somebody who was happy most of the time and took great pride in making people laugh when I was able to pull that off.”