ARTNEWSPRESS: Sad news to report today as Valerie Harper, best known for playing Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda, has passed away at the age of 80 following a lengthy battle with cancer.
Born in 1939, Valerie Harper began her entertainment career by studying ballet and soon became a Broadway dancer in a number of musicals, including Wildcat starring Lucille Ball and Take Me Along starring Jackie Gleason. Harper would quickly branch out to other aspects of the entertainment world with appearances in feature-films, television, and theater, but she got her big break when she was asked to audition for Mary Tyler Moore’s new show. “It was the easiest, most pleasant audition process I ever went through, and it had this extraordinary outcome,” Harper told the Archive of American Television in a 2009 interview. “It was the wind in the sails of my entire career.” Harper played Rhoda Morgenstern, the witty, insecure best friend of Mary Richards (Moore) who lived upstairs. Her character was so popular that a spin-off, Rhoda, was developed several seasons later and Harper departed The Mary Tyler Moore Show, although she would still make guest appearances throughout its remaining years. Although the series was initially extremely popular, CBS wound up cancelling Rhoda mid-way through its fifth season. “My biggest regret was that we hadn’t been given an opportunity to write a final episode of Rhoda,” Harper wrote in her book. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show had wrapped up with a perfect, bittersweet and amusing finale on which I was thrilled to be able to appear. I wish that Rhoda had been given the same opportunity.” Valerie Harper snagged four Emmy Awards as well as a Golden Globe for her work as Rhoda Morgenstern across the two shows.
Following Rhoda, Valerie Harper would take the lead in Valerie, a sitcom in which she played the role of a mother trying to juggle her career as well as raising three sons while her husband was frequently absent. Due to a dispute with NBC, Harper was written out of the series after two seasons and it was explained that her character had died. Amazingly, the show actually continued without Valerie Harper for four more seasons (under two different titles) before it was finally cancelled.
Valerie Harper also appeared in Touched by an Angel, Sex and the City, That ’70s Show, Desperate Housewives, Drop Dead Diva, Hot in Cleveland, The Simpsons, American Dad!, and much more. She will be missed.
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Kevin Fraser
