Godspeed, Valerie Harper

As little as three months to live.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/2013/03/06/valerie_harper_of_mary_tyler_moore_show_has_terminal_brain_cancer_people_magazine.html

 

Rhoda Morganstern, perhaps ever more than Mary Richards, was the paradigm of the newly independent 1970s woman trying to sort it all out. I hadn't heard anything about her since she left her eponymous series and was actually replaced. I hope she can make the most of the time she has left.

 

She'll be replaced with Sandy Duncan.

 

Damn, right on the tip of my tongue, but I wasn't confident enough

 

Exceedingly well played.

 

Always liked Valerie Harper, and her show was a hell of a lot better with her than with Sandy Duncan ... but Rhoda Morgenstern is possibly the most annoying person I have ever witnessed, real or fictional.

 

I am glad she didn't go to Rio with Michelle Johnson and Demi Moore.

Seriously, that's horrible news. Not too many of the old MTM Show gang left anymore.

 

I bow in your general direction.

 

I think I remember reading an interview with Jason Bateman, maybe back when Arrested Development was coming out where he said the producers did something strange with the syndication rights to the show (they made 110 episodes) because they would have had to pay Harper a huge percentage of the profits, even for the four seasons where she wasn't on...

To get fired from a show that carries your name... You have to figure she was a complete nightmare...

 

Doesn't get much better than that.

I remember how strange it was when Harper got into the contract scrap, and that was the network's reaction. It was fairly unprecedented at the time, I believe.

 

I was thinking of Thelma Harper. Whoops.

(Sue me, I watched "Mama's Family" reruns growing up.)