Law & Order Star Maura Tierney's Big TV Break Was In A Dick Van Dyke Sitcom

Maura Tierney's journey to "Law & Order" began in an unexpected place: The set of "The Van Dyke Show." 

Tierney starred in "The Van Dyke Show" as Jillian, a facetious office assistant who makes up part of the ragtag team at the show's central small-town Pennsylvania theater. Different from the influential "Dick Van Dyke Show" of the 1960s, "The Van Dyke Show" was a short-lived 1988 sitcom that followed Dick Van Dyke as Dick Burgess, a former Broadway star who relocates to Pennsylvania to live with his son Matt Burgess (Barry Van Dyke,) the owner of the theater that employs Jillian. "The Van Dyke Show" marked Tierney's television series debut and she appeared as Jillian in every one of the sitcom's ten episodes.

"The Van Dyke Show" only lasted for a single season on CBS before falling victim to a wide-ranging spate of cancellations which affected multiple networks in the winter of 1988. The sitcom was one of several times that Dick Van Dyke worked alongside his real-life son Barry, whose first TV role saw him play a nine-year-old violinist in a 1962 episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show." The two Van Dykes later made joint appearances in the medical crime drama "Diagnosis Murder" and the TV movie series "Murder 101."

Maura Tierney's current role as Lieutenant Jessica Brady on "Law & Order" is a far cry from her sitcom origins, but the actress still holds fond memories for her work on "The Van Dyke Show." "I was so freaking young," Tierney told Us Weekly in a 2024 interview, reflecting on her first big entrance into television. While it may have felt intimidating to make this huge career stride in proximity to the monumental Dick Van Dyke, the "Law & Order" actress quickly found her "Van Dyke" co-star to be "truly the nicest man." "He had stories to tell," Tierney continued. "I didn't find that, like, he was tripping over sofas — he just was a very entertaining guy who'd seen a lot, you know?"

Tierney first found stable, multi-season work once she was cast on the '90s sitcom "NewsRadio" and the medical drama "ER." Despite her far more successful stints in "Law & Order" and Showtime's "The Affair" these days, she continues to regard her time as a TV unknown with a distinct affection. "It's just different when you're younger," Tierney reminisced to the "Life in Film" podcast in 2024. "Auditioning sucks but when you're just starting out, realizing ... people want to see you again ... it was a really unique moment in time."

"There's that kind of excitement when you're getting auditions and then you're auditioning more and it feels, you know, that ... that's not something I will know again," the "Law & Order" actress elaborated. "I recall those times fondly."