Valerie Harper, TV’S Rhoda, dies
Actress had battled cancer for years
Valerie Harper, who scored guffaws, stole hearts and busted TV taboos as the brash, selfdeprecating Rhoda Morgenstern on back-to-back hit sitcoms in the 1970s, has died.
Longtime family friend Dan Watt confirmed Harper died Friday. She had been battling cancer for years, and her husband said recently he had been advised to put her in hospice care.
Harper was a breakout star on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” then the lead of her own series, “Rhoda.” She was 80.
She won three consecutive Emmys (1971-73) as supporting actress on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and another for outstanding lead actress for “Rhoda,” which ran from 1974-78. Beyond awards, she was immortalized — and typecast — for playing one of television’s most beloved characters, a best friend in TV’S sidekick pantheon.
In 2013, she first revealed that she had been diagnosed with brain cancer and had been told by her doctors she had as little as three months to live. But she refused to despair. “I’m not dying until I do,” Harper said in an interview on NBC’S “Today” show. “I promise I won’t.”
Harper did outlive her co-star: Mary Tyler Moore died in January 2017.
Harper was a chorus dancer on Broadway as a teen before moving into comedy and improv when, in 1970, she auditioned for the part of a Bronx-born Jewish girl who would be a neighbor and pal of Minneapolis news producer Mary Richards on a new sitcom for CBS.
It seemed a long shot for the young, unknown actress. As she recalled, “I’m not Jewish, not from New York, and I have a small shiksa nose.” And she had almost no TV experience.
But Harper, who arrived for her audition some 20 pounds overweight, may have clinched the role when she blurted out in admiration to the show’s tall, slender star: “Look at you in white pants without a long jacket to cover your behind!”
It was exactly the sort of thing Rhoda would say to “Mar,” as Harper recalled in her 2013 memoir, “I, Rhoda.” Harper was signed without a screen test.
The show that resulted was a groundbreaking hit, with comically relatable Rhoda one big reason.
“Women really identified with Rhoda because her problems and fears were theirs,” Harper theorized in her book. “Despite the fact that she was the butt of most of her own jokes, so to speak, ... her confident swagger masked her insecurity. Rhoda never gave up.”
Neither did Harper, who confronted her own insecurities with similar moxie.
“I was always a little overweight,” she once told The Associated Press. “I’d say, ‘Hello, I’m Valerie Harper and I’m overweight.’ I’d say it quickly before they could.”
But as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” evolved, so did Rhoda. Rhoda trimmed down and glammed up, while never losing her comic step. The audience loved her.
A spinoff seemed inevitable. In 1974, Rhoda was dispatched from Minneapolis back home to New York City, where she was reunited with her parents and younger sister in a new sitcom that costarred Nancy Walker, Harold Gould and Julie Kavner.
She also met and fell in love with the hunky owner of a demolition firm.
The premiere of “Rhoda” that September was the week’s top-rated show, getting a 42 percent shar. And a few weeks later, when Rhoda and her fiance, Joe, were wed in a one-hour special episode, more than 52 million people — half of the U.S. viewing audience — tuned in.
But “Rhoda” couldn’t maintain those heights. A domesticated, lucky-inlove Rhoda wasn’t a funny Rhoda. By the end of the third season, the writers had Rhoda divorce Joe.
The series ended in 1978 with Harper having played Rhoda for nine seasons.