Valerie Harper
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| Valerie Harper | |
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| Born | August 22, 1940 Suffern, New York, USA |
| Spouse(s) | Tony Cacciotti (1987-present) Richard Schaal (1964-1978) |
| Official website | |
Valerie Harper (born August 22, 1940) is an Emmy Award-winning American actress, best known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on the 1970s television show The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and its spinoff, Rhoda.
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[edit] Biography
Harper was born in Suffern, New York at Good Samaritan Hospital in Rockland County, New York, to a mixed Catholic/Lutheran family, and reared in Oregon. She began as a dancer/chorus girl on Broadway in the late 1950s and early 1960s in such shows such as Take Me Along and Subways Are For Sleeping, as well as Wildcat, in which she performed with Lucille Ball. She can be seen as an extra in rock-and roll promo films that featured such artists as "Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers". In 2001 she returned to the Broadway stage to replace Linda Lavin in The Tale of the Allergist's Wife.
She also appeared in bit parts in several films beginning with Li'l Abner (1959), when she was a teenager. During the late 1960s, however, Harper worked somewhat less, though she appeared in Carl Reiner's play Something Different in 1968. She also wrote an episode of Love, American Style with her then-husband, actor/writer, Richard Schaal, whose daughter, actress Wendy Schaal (who voices "Francine Smith" on American Dad), was her stepdaughter.
Things changed when Harper got the role of the wise-cracking yet vulnerable uber-Jewish New Yorker, Rhoda Morgenstern, on two landmark CBS TV sitcoms of the 1970s: The Mary Tyler Moore Show (regular from 1970-74) and its spin-off Rhoda (1974-78), in which she played the title role. She won four Emmy awards and a Golden Globe for her work as Rhoda Morgenstern on both series. Her costar was David Groh (1939-2008). He was written out of the series in the third season through divorce.
She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for "New Star of the Year" for her role in 1974's Freebie and The Bean.[1]
Harper was one of the first people to guest star on The Muppet Show in its first season.
She also played family matriarch Valerie Hogan on the 1986 sitcom Valerie. It was renamed The Hogan Family in 1987 after Harper abruptly left the series (following a dispute with the producers) and was replaced by Sandy Duncan, who played her sister-in-law.
Harper has worked almost exclusively in theatre and television, but did have key supporting roles in Neil Simon's Chapter Two in 1979 and Stanley Donen's Blame It on Rio (1984) opposite Michael Caine.
She has had roles in TV movies and guest spots on a number of series, including Sex and the City. In the 1990s, she advocated hormone replacement therapy for Eli Lilly and Company.
Harper is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and ran for president in the 2001 election, losing to Melissa Gilbert. She currently serves on the national board of directors of SAG.[2]
A 2000 project, Mary and Rhoda, was planned as a reunion series for Harper and her friend and longtime co-star, Mary Tyler Moore, but the project instead appeared as a made-for-TV movie on the ABC network.
In 2007, Harper portrayed Golda Meir in a national tour of the one-woman Broadway drama Golda's Balcony. She also released a film version of the show.
In 2008, she will take on the role of Tallulah Bankhead in the world-premiere production of Matthew Lombardo's "Looped" at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Televison
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[edit] Film
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[edit] Awards
Nominations
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Nominations
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[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Valerie's Official Site
- Rhoda Online
- Valerie Harper at the Internet Movie Database
- Valerie Harper at TV.com
- InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: Valerie Harper (TV Interview)
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