March 6, 201313 yr By ABC News Mar 6, 2013 8:57am Valerie Harper, the actress best known for playing Rhoda Morgenstern on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and her own spinoff, “Rhoda,” has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Harper, 73, received the diagnosis on Jan. 15, just days before she appeared on “Good Morning America” and described the stroke-like symptoms that sent her to the hospital. “It was if I had Novocain,” Harper said in the live interview Jan. 21. “I thought what the heck is happening to me?” “I went to the hospital and they couldn’t find much of anything. Now I’m still awaiting test results,” she said at the time, also adding, “I’m feeling great.” Harper tells People magazine in its latest issue, on newsstands Friday, that the tests from that January hospital stay revealed she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare condition that occurs when cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain. According to People, Harper’s doctors have told her she may have just three months to live. “I don’t think of dying,” the Emmy-winning actress tells the magazine. “I think of being here now.” Harper appeared on “GMA” in January to promote her new memoir, “I, Rhoda.” In the book she revealed for the first time that she battled lung cancer in 2009 while starring in the Broadway show “Looped.” “I thought this is just not going to be good for comedy if the audience is out there worrying about their Rhoda,” Harper said of her decision to keep her disease, which she fought with a combination of chemotherapy and radiation, private. Now Harper, who is married with one daughter, has decided to take her current health struggle public. “There are moments when she feels extremely sad. She’s also extremely funny,” J.D. Heyman, executive editor of People, told “GMA.” “She’s very, very happy that she’s had the life that she had.”
March 6, 201313 yr Active Members She has been one of my favorites. I am sorry to hear this. I hope she does not suffer whatever the eventual result. Best regards, RA1
March 7, 201313 yr Active Members She's a really good actress. When I saw her do an interview during the Mary Tyler Moore years, I couldn't believe she really didn't have a New York accent. She nailed that character. The transition to her own show was deftly done too. I understand that a spin-off character who can be crazy in a supporting role has to become much more centered in a starring role, so that the other characters can bounce off her. I thought she handled that transition very well. Hell, her spinoff show lasted five seasons. Cloris Leachman's lasted only two. She has a lot to be proud of. Sorry I never got to see her do Tallu.
March 7, 201313 yr Active Members Sad news indeed. I really enjoyed her in most everything I saw her act in. I especially remember her in her sitcom "Valerie", maybe because there were some cute guys playing her children (Jason Bateman, Danny Ponce and Jeremy Licht) and I was about the same age as the youngest. She was really a good actress.
March 8, 201313 yr Active Members I was shocked and saddened by the annoucement. It makes you ponder the uncertainty of Life, and think about HOW you should live the life you have. May God Bless her...
March 10, 201313 yr Active Members Wow, I'm not sure many, myself included, could face death with such composure.
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