NEW YORK – Valerie Harper, who played Rhoda Morgenstern on TV’s “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and its spinoff, “Rhoda,” has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
People magazine reported on its website Wednesday that the 73-year-old actress received the news Jan. 15. Tests revealed she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare condition that occurs when cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain. The report says Harper’s doctors have said she has as little as three months to live.
“I don’t think of dying,” Harper told the magazine in a cover interview. “I think of being here now.”
In recent years, Harper had guest roles on several TV series, and in 2010, she was back on Broadway playing Tallulah Bankhead, a flamboyant star from Hollywood’s Golden Age.
In January, Harper published a new memoir, “I, Rhoda.”
– Associated Press