Valerie Harper

Early life

Harper was born on August 22, 1939, in Suffern, New York, the daughter of Iva Mildred (née McConnell) and Howard Donald Harper. Her father was a traveling lighting salesman; her mother was born (and raised) in Dalmeny, Saskatchewan, before becoming a teacher and later training as a nurse. Her parents married in Alberta before her mother immigrated to the United States. Harper was the middle child of three, between her sister Leanne and her brother Merrill, who later took the name "Don". After her parents' divorce in 1957, she also had a half-sister, Virginia, from her father's second marriage to Angela Posillico (1933–1996).

She stated that her parents were expecting a boy. But after her arrival her first and middle names were derived from tennis players Valerie Scott and Kay Stammers who were victorious doubles partners at a tournament Harper's father was attending the day she was born. Her father was of English and French-Canadian ancestry and her mother was of French-Canadian, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry. Harper based her character Rhoda Morgenstern on her Italian-American stepmother and Penny Ann Green (née Joanna Greenberg), with whom she danced in the Broadway musical Wildcat. She was raised Catholic and attended several Catholic schools during her childhood, although at an early age she quit attending church.

Harper's family moved frequently throughout her childhood due to her father's work. When Harper was in first grade, the family relocated again to California, living in Altadena and Pasadena before briefly residing in Monroe, Michigan. In 1951, the family settled in Ashland, Oregon, where Harper attended junior high school for three years. "During those years in Oregon, Dad was gone on more frequent and more lengthy road trips," Harper recalled. "As a result, Mom was alone a lot, so much that she was virtually a single parent."

After she completed junior high school in Oregon, the family moved again to Jersey City, New Jersey, before graduating from the private Young Professionals School on West 56th Street, where classmates included Sal Mineo, Tuesday Weld, and Carol Lynley.

Career

Broadway dancer and improv

Harper began her show business career as a dancer and chorus girl on Broadway, and went on to perform in several Broadway shows, some choreographed by Michael Kidd, including Wildcat (starring Lucille Ball), Li'l Abner, Take Me Along (starring Jackie Gleason), and Subways Are for Sleeping. She was also cast in the musical Destry Rides Again, but was forced to leave rehearsals due to illness. She returned to Broadway in February 2010, playing Tallulah Bankhead in Matthew Lombardo's Looped at the Lyceum Theatre.

Harper had bit parts in Rock, Rock, Rock! (1956) and the film version of Li'l Abner (1959), where she played a Yokumberry Tonic wife. She broke into television on a 1963 episode of the soap opera The Doctors ("Zip Guns Can Kill"), and was an extra in Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). She was in the ensemble cast of Paul Sills' Story Theatre and toured with Second City along with then-husband Richard Schaal, Linda Lavin, and others, later appearing in sketches on Playboy After Dark in 1969. She performed several characters in a comedy LP record, When You're in Love the Whole World is Jewish (1965), which included the popular novelty single, The Ballad of Irving, a recitation by TV announcer Frank Gallop. Harper and Schaal moved to Los Angeles in 1968, and co-wrote an episode of Love, American Style.

Television and film

Richard Schaal and Harper wrote "Love and the Visitor" (1970) for Love, American Style, a TV romantic comedy series.

While doing theater in Los Angeles in 1970, Harper was spotted by casting agent Ethel Winant, who called her in to audition for the role of Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She co-starred there from 1970 to 1974, then starred in the spinoff series Rhoda (CBS 1974–1978) in which her character returned to New York City.

She won four Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for her work as Rhoda Morgenstern. The first season of Rhoda was released on DVD on April 21, 2009 by Shout! Factory.

Harper was nominated for a Golden Globe for "New Star of the Year" for her supporting role in Freebie and the Bean (1974), and was a guest star on The Muppet Show in 1976, its first season. She had a starring role in the suspense movie Night Terror (1977), playing a murder witness who's pursued by the killer. She had a supporting role in the romantic comedy Chapter Two (1979), starring James Caan and Marsha Mason, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also starred as Maggie in a telefilm production of the Michael Cristofer play The Shadow Box (1980), directed by Paul Newman.

Harper returned to situation comedy in 1986 when she played family matriarch Valerie Hogan on the NBC series Valerie. Following a salary dispute with NBC and production company Lorimar in 1987, she was fired from the series at the end of its second season, and she sued NBC and Lorimar for breach of contract. Her claims against NBC were dismissed, but the jury found that Lorimar had wrongfully fired her and awarded her $1.4 million plus 12.5% of the show's profits. The series continued without her, with the explanation that her character had died off-screen. In 1987, it was initially renamed Valerie's Family, then The Hogan Family, as Harper was replaced by Sandy Duncan, who played her sister-in-law Sandy Hogan.

Harper appeared in various television films, including guest roles on such series as Touched by an Angel (1996), Melrose Place (1998) ,Sex and the City (1999), and That 70's Show (2001).

In 2000, she reunited with Moore in Mary and Rhoda, a television film that reunited their characters in later life.

Later career

Harper was a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and ran for its presidency in 2001, losing to Melissa Gilbert. She served on SAG's Hollywood board of directors.

In 2005–2006, Harper portrayed Golda Meir in a United States national tour of the one-woman drama Golda's Balcony. A film of the production was released in 2007.

She played Tallulah Bankhead in the world-premiere production of Matthew Lombardo's Looped at the Pasadena Playhouse from June 27 to August 3, 2008. The show moved to Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in 2009. It then briefly ran on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre, from February 2010 (previews) through April 2010, for which Harper received a Tony Award nomination. She was to continue the role on a national tour beginning January 2013, but withdrew due to her health.

She played Claire Bremmer, aunt of Susan Delfino (Teri Hatcher), on ABC's Desperate Housewives in 2011.

On September 4, 2013, Harper was announced as a contestant for the 17th season of Dancing with the Stars, partnered with professional dancer Tristan MacManus. They were eliminated from the show on October 7, 2013.

One of Harper's final network television roles, in 2015, was a guest role as Nola on 2 Broke Girls. This was a full circle moment, as the show was similar to her breakout role of two best girlfriends making it on their own in a city as portrayed in The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Coincidentally, on Harper's own show Rhoda, Vivian Vance guest starred on Rhoda shortly before Vance's death, which mirrored Vance's breakout role of two best girlfriends portrayed in I Love Lucy.

Harper appeared as the character Wanda on the American comedy web television series Liza on Demand, in its July 11, 2018, episode: "Valentine's Day".

Activism and charity work

In the 1970s, Harper was involved in the women's liberation movement and was an advocate of the Equal Rights Amendment. With Dennis Weaver she co-founded L.I.F.E. (Love Is Feeding Everyone) in 1983, a charity that fed thousands of needy people in Los Angeles.

On March 30, 2012, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) completed a merger of equals forming a new union SAG-AFTRA. As a result of this merger, a group of actors including Harper, fellow voice actors Michael Bell, Clancy Brown, Harper’s former stepdaughter Wendy Schaal, and other actors including former SAG President Edward Asner, Martin Sheen, Ed Harris, and Nancy Sinatra immediately sued against the current SAG President Ken Howard and several SAG Vice Presidents to overturn the merger and separate the (now merged) two unions because of their claims that the election was improper. The plaintiffs dropped their lawsuit several months later.

Personal life

Harper's NYC roommate was Arlene Golonka.

Harper married actor Richard Schaal in 1964. They divorced in 1978, after which she had a relationship with Peter Horton. She married Tony Cacciotti in 1987, after dating for seven years, and they adopted a daughter, Cristina.

Despite playing Jewish characters such as Rhoda Morgenstern,

In 2014 Harper was on The Howard Stern Show and, while discussing her terminal illness, told Howard in private a secret code word that only the two of them would know, which could be used after her death to prove if psychics were real. This idea for a secret word was based on a pact Harry Houdini had made with his wife Bess where they promised each other that the first one to die would attempt to contact the surviving spouse from the afterlife, using a code the couple had created to verify any spiritualists or psychics claiming they had made contact. In December, 2024, magician and mentalist Oz Pearlman appeared on the Howard Stern Show and guessed that the word was "curly."

Illness and death

In 2009, Harper was diagnosed with lung cancer. She announced on March 6, 2013, that tests from a January hospital stay revealed she had leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare condition where cancer cells spread into the meninges, the membranes surrounding the brain. She said that her doctors had given her as little as three months to live. Although the disease was considered incurable, her doctors said they were treating her with chemotherapy to try to slow its progress.

In April 2014, Harper said she was responding well to the treatment. On July 30, 2015, she was hospitalized in Maine after falling unconscious, and taken via medevac to a larger hospital for further treatment. She was later discharged.

In 2016, Harper's cancer treatment continued at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and she was well enough to appear in a short film, My Mom and the Girl, based on the experiences of director/writer Susie Singer Carter, whose mother has Alzheimer's disease. In September 2017, she said: "People are saying, 'She's on her way to death and quickly'. Now it's five years instead of three months... I'm going to fight this. I'm going to see a way." At the time, she was developing a television series with Carter.

By July 2019, she was on a regimen of "a multitude of medications and chemotherapy drugs" and was experiencing "extreme physical and painful challenges" that required "around-the-clock, 24/7 care." Harper died on the morning of August 30, 2019, in Los Angeles.

Harper is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Filmography

Films

Television

Web

Theater

Awards and nominations

Notes

References

Bibliography

References

1. (September 7, 2019). "Valerie Harper Laid to Rest in L.A. as Daughter Gives Speech During Funeral".
2. "Valerie Harper – Broadway Cast & Staff {{!}} IBDB".
3. "Valerie Harper Biography". [[FYI (American TV channel)#The Biography Channel.
4. (February 26, 2009). "Valerie Harper Interview Part 1 of 3". [[The Interviews: An Oral History of Television.
5. "Iva Mcconell Harper". Family Search.
6. (September 17, 2013). "I, Rhoda". Simon & Schuster.
7. (January 15, 2013). "I Rhoda: A Memoir". Gallery Books.
8. (April 12, 2006). "Good as Golda; Yes, that is veteran actress Valerie Harper playing Israel's 1970s prime minister in a play coming soon to Toronto. Turns out Rhoda Morgenstern has Canadian roots". [[Toronto Star]].
9. (July 28, 1973). "Ask Them Yourself". [[The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
10. (March 11, 2013). "'I, Rhoda': Valerie Harper looks back at her life". [[Today (American TV program).
11. "LoopedOnBroadway.com". Loopedonbroadway.com.
12. (2020-01-06). "Valerie Harper: You Will Be Missed".
13. Wagner, Laura. (2011-08-12). "Anne Francis: The Life and Career". McFarland.
14. (2020-04-04). "Guest TV Appearances - The William Windom Tribute Site".
15. [http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Rhoda-Season-1-Press-Release/11350 "Rhoda - Formal Press Release from Shout! Factory for Rhoda's 1st Season DVDs"] {{Webarchive. link. (June 1, 2009 Tvshowsondvd.com, accessed January 26, 2011.)
16. "Valerie Harper profile". Thegoldenglobes.com.
17. (February 7, 2000). "Mary and Rhoda | Archive of American Television".
18. (November 3, 2001). "Divided SAG Elects Melissa Gilbert". Los Angeles Times.
19. (March 11, 2013). "Pro-Israel Valerie Harper (Rhoda) Suffering Incurable Cancer". [[The Jewish Press]].
20. (April 5, 2005). "Valerie Harper to Play Meir in Golda's Balcony Tour". [[Playbill]].
21. "Looped". Pasadena Playhouse.
22. (July 10, 2008). "'Looped' at the Pasadena Playhouse". Los Angeles Times.
23. "Looped". Arena Stage.
24. (April 5, 2010). "'Looped' Will Play Its Final Fadeout April 11". Playbill.
25. (January 28, 2013). "Valerie Harper Drops Out Of 'Looped' Tour For Health Reasons". [[Hartford Courant]].
26. (December 2010). "Keck's Exclusives: Rhoda Comes to Desperate Housewives". [[TV Guide]].
27. (September 4, 2013). "''Dancing With the Stars'' 2013: Season 17 Cast Announced". [[ABC News (United States).
28. (June 27, 2018). "''Liza Koshy's YouTube Premium Series LIZA ON DEMAND Now Streaming'' 2013: Season 17 Cast Announced". Broadway World.
29. "Rhoda Morgenster's Tumblr". Tumblr.
30. (July 2025). "Valerie Harper She Doesn't Mince Words; She's Here For Equality". [[Evening Independent]].
31. (October 6, 1994). "Info re L.I.F.E. (charity)". Los Angeles Times.
32. (October 23, 1992). "Album's Proceeds To Go To Charity". [[Sun-Sentinel]].
33. Handel, Jonathan. (February 27, 2012). "SAG/AFTRA Anti Merger Lawsuit Drops Demands". [[The Hollywood Reporter]].
34. Verrier, Richard. "SAG-AFTRA merger opponents to drop lawsuit".
35. (12 October 2021). "'The Andy Griffith Show' Star Lived with Valerie Harper, Put 'Rhoda' Actor on Fast Track to Success".
36. (March 7, 1979). "Actress Valerie Harper and actor Peter Horton attend the Seventh Annual American Film Institute (AFI) Lifetime Achievement Award Salute to Alfred Hitchcock on March 7, 1979 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.".
37. (September 19, 1988). "Valerie Harper Savors Her Victory". [[Los Angeles Times]].
38. (August 30, 2019). "Valerie Harper, Who Won Fame and Emmys as 'Rhoda,' Dies at 80". The New York Times.
39. (September 19, 2014). "Howard Stern Invites Psychics to Guess the Secret Word the Late Valerie Harper Once Told Him".
40. (October 30, 2020). "Hollywood, Houdini and the Halloween Seance of 1936". The Library of Congress.
41. (December 16, 2024). "Oz 'The Mentalist' Pearlman Makes His 'Howard Stern Show' Debut". IMDb.com.
42. Lloyd, Janice (March 6, 2013). [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/06/valerie-harper-brain-cancer/1967129 "Harper's brain cancer likely related to previous cancer"]. ''[[USA Today]]''.
43. (March 6, 2013). "Valerie Harper Has Terminal Brain Cancer". People.
44. (March 6, 2013). "Valerie Harper's Rare Cancer Explained". People.
45. [http://www.closerweekly.com/posts/valerie-harper-reveals-i-am-absolutely-cancer-free-37249 Valerie Harper Reveals: "I Am Absolutely Cancer-Free!"]. ''[[Closer (magazine). Closer]]''. Retrieved April 16, 2014.
46. (July 30, 2015). "Valerie Harper's hospitalization prior to a Maine performance a 'precaution,' says the theater".
47. (July 30, 2015). "Valerie Harper In a Coma, Sources Say".
48. "Valerie Harper released from hospital". USA Today.
49. "Valerie Harper not in coma, looking forward to returning to Ogunquit Playhouse". [[Bangor Daily News]].
50. (October 12, 2017). "Valerie Harper back on screen despite cancer struggle". [[The Chronicle Herald]].
51. (September 27, 2017). "Valerie Harper's cancer battle: 'Now it's 5 years instead of 3 months'".
52. "BWW Interview: Valerie Harper Talks New Film & Not Letting Life Slip By".
53. (July 18, 2019). "GoFundMe created to ease Valerie Harper's 'unrelenting medical costs' amid cancer fight". [[USA Today]].
54. Saperstein, Pat. [https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/valerie-harper-dead-dies-mary-tyler-moore-rhoda-1203319887/?yptr=yahoo "Valerie Harper, Rhoda on 'Mary Tyler Moore Show,' Dies at 80"] ''Variety'', August 30, 2019
55. (August 30, 2019). "Valerie Harper, Who Played Beloved TV Sidekick Rhoda, Dies At 80". [[NPR]].
56. (September 8, 2019). "Valerie Harper Laid to Rest in Intimate Los Angeles Funeral".
57. (October 12, 2017). "Valerie Harper back on screen despite cancer struggle". ABC News.
58. (January 8, 2014). "Valerie Harper Will Guest Star in First Two Episodes of "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," the Highly Anticipated Hallmark Channel Original". [[Hallmark Channel]].