Georgette Franklin Baxter

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Georgette Franklin Baxter
Georgette Franklin Baxter

Georgette Franklin Baxter was a fictional character on Mary Tyler Moore. She was played from 1972, until the show's end in 1977, by Georgia Engel.


[edit] The dizzy one who landed the marblemouth.

Georgette was the somewhat dizzy girlfriend (and later wife) of marblemouthed news anchor, Ted Baxter.

She made her first appearance at one of Mary's legendary disastrous parties. She worked as a window dresser at Hempel's Department Store in Minneapolis, Minnesota along with Rhoda Morgenstern.

Georgette was introduced as Rhoda's coworker but over the years it was more or less implied she was Mary's friend first. In fact it was Mary who said she felt responsible for introducing Georgette to Ted.

Georgette's character was a case of great timing as Ted Knight the actor who portrayed Ted Baxter was making a lot of noise at CBS threatenin to leave the "Mary Tyler Moore" show if his character was not made more dimensional. Indeed until this point, Ted had been almost cartoon like. Engle's performace of Gerogette struck a chord with the producers who saw her as a way to humanize and make Ted a more dimensional character.

Georgette was indeed devoted to Ted, in fact she was origanlly persented as Ted's "servent," but this later changed. Soon Georgette became the one person wouldn't take any of Ted's shenanigans lightly either. Georgette expected Ted to behave like the human being she loved, not like the cartoon Lou, Mary and Murray mocked all the time.

Eventually, after several starts and stops, they did get married in Mary Richards's apartment. They adopted a child named David Robbie Rist, and later, she gave birth to a little girl named Mary Lou, named after her friends, Mary and Lou Grant. This birth also occurred in Mary's apartment.

She and Mary got along fantastically, and she helped somewhat fill the void that Rhoda and Phyllis left in Mary's life, when they left for New York and San Francisco, respectively.

Although Georgette was presented as a window dresser working with Rhoda, she held many jobs during the show's run. She worked in a car rental place, as a Golden Girl (sort of an Avon lady), and again worked for Rhoda, when Rhoda opened up a buisness selling plants.


Mary Tyler Moore
Main Characters Ted Baxter | Georgette Franklin Baxter | Lou Grant
Phyllis Lindstrom | Rhoda Morgenstern | Sue Ann Nivens
Mary Richards | Murray Slaughter
Recurring Characters David Baxter | Edie Grant | Gordy Howard | Bess Lindstrom
Flo Meredith | Ida Morgenstern | Martin Morgenstern
Dottie Richards | Walter Richards | Andy Rivers
Marie Slaughter
Other Episodes | DVDs