Valerie Harper

Was buried on 9/7/2019 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles near graves of Mickey Rooney and Chris Cornell.

On 3/6/2013 she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and was given only months to live. With treatments, she was able to beat the odds and live for over six more years.

Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 206-207. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387

In the fall of 1987 she was abruptly fired by Lorimar from her NBC TV series Valerie (1986). She didn't show for filming one day. The series decided to continue on without her as "Valerie's Family" with Sandy Duncan playing Sandy Hogan, replacing Harper's "Valerie Hogan" character. Harper sued Lorimar for breach of contract and in the fall of 1988 was awarded $1.4 million plus 12.5% of the profits of the show, which continued on without her until 1991.

Harper won Harvard's Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year, and her Rhoda's Wedding episode set that 1974's ratings record. Since retiring Rhoda Morganstern to re-runs, Harper was active on stage and in movies.

Her feature films included Freebie and the Bean (1974), Chapter Two (1979), The Last Married Couple in America (1980) and Blame It on Rio (1984).

Making people laugh was only one facet of Valerie Harper's career, which extended from the stage to television and feature films. A native of Suffern, New York -- "I was born to suffer" -- Harper began her career as a dancer with the corps de ballet at Radio City Hall during its spectacular heyday. She gradually moved into acting, working in everything from industrial shows to regional theatre to the Second City comedy troupe of Chicago. Eventually, she made it to Broadway in productions of Dear Liar, the Tony Award winning Story Theatre, Something Different and Metamorphosis. Stardom came with television, including four Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for her work in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and Rhoda (1974), in which the latter she played the title role.

She and her then-husband Richard Schaal were also a writing team and wrote a script for the series Love, American Style (1969) called "Love and the Visitor", Love, American Style: Love and the Elopement/Love and the Visitor (1970), back in the early 1970s.

First met Mary Tyler Moore on set of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), where her then-husband, Richard Schaal, was guest-starring.

Before hitting it big as "Rhoda Morgenstern", she maintained a steady stream of supporting player appearances in Broadway musicals throughout the 1960s, appearing with such legends as Jackie Gleason, Robert Morse, Walter Pidgeon, Phyllis Newman, Sydney Chaplin, Orson Bean and Lucille Ball.