Valerie Harper
Birthday:
Birthplace:
Suffern, New York, USA
Actress Valerie Harper's fame largely rests on her colorful portrayal of television's "New Yawk-er" Rhoda Morgenstern. After growing up in Oregon, Michigan and Jersey City, Harper became a chorus dancer in the Big Apple, hoofing with the Radio City Rockettes and performing in such Broadway musicals as Li'l Abner, Take Me Along, Wildcat and Subways Are for Sleeping. Her first film appearance was in the 1959 movie adaptation of Li'l Abner. While spending her nights on stage, she attended Hunter College and the New School for Social Research, supporting herself between dancing gigs as a telephone canvasser and hat-check girl. During the 1960s, she did comedy-improv work with Second City and Paul Sill's Story Theatre (one of her co-workers during her Sills years was her first husband, comic actor Richard Schaal). In the popular mid-1960s comedy record album When You're in Love, the Whole World is Jewish, Harper can be heard offering an embryonic version of Rhoda Morgenstern, a character she based on her childhood friend Penny Almog. So well-grounded was she in Rhoda-like characterizations by 1970 that she was hired for The Mary Tyler Moore Show (her first regular TV-series gig) on the basis of a one-sentence audition. After winning three Emmies for her Mary Tyler Moore work, Harper was spun off into her own series in 1974, titled Rhoda. Though it opened to excellent ratings (thanks largely to the one-hour episode in which Rhoda married her blue-collar fiance Joe [David Groh]), Rhoda was never as big a hit as Mary Tyler Moore, and it left the air in 1978. During this period, Harper made her formal film debut in Freebie and the Bean (1974), earning a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of a Puerto Rican housewife. After toting up several stage and TV-movie credits, she returned to the weekly-series grind in 1986 with Valerie. She walked out on the show over a salary dispute, whereupon the producers fired her and retooled the series into The Hogan Family, which ran without Harper until 1991. She has starred in two series since leaving Valerie (1990's City and 1995's The Office) but has been unable to latch onto a character with the staying power of Rhoda Morgenstern. Additional appearances in Melrose Place, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives, and Drop Dead Diva followed, Extremely active in prosocial causes off-camera, Valerie Harper was co-founder of an anti-hunger organization called LIFE (Love Is Feeding Everyone).
Photos
Highest Rated Movies
Filmography
MOVIES
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | BOX OFFICE | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet | Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity |
|
— | 2018 |
No Score Yet | She's The Best Thing In It |
|
— | 2015 |
No Score Yet | The Town That Came A-Courtin' |
|
— | 2014 |
33% | Certainty |
|
— | 2012 |
No Score Yet | Fixing Pete |
|
— | 2012 |
No Score Yet | Shiver |
|
— | 2012 |
No Score Yet | My Future Boyfriend |
|
— | 2011 |
63% | Golda's Balcony |
|
— | 2007 |
No Score Yet | Anne Murray in Jamaica |
|
— | 2005 |
No Score Yet | Dancing at the Harvest Moon |
|
— | 2002 |
No Score Yet | Mary and Rhoda |
|
— | 2000 |
No Score Yet | Dog's Best Friend |
|
— | 1997 |
No Score Yet | The Great Mom Swap |
|
— | 1995 |
No Score Yet | A Friend to Die For (Death of a Cheerleader) |
|
— | 1994 |
No Score Yet | Death of a Cheerleader |
|
— | 1994 |
No Score Yet | Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Fashion |
|
— | 1991 |
No Score Yet | The People Across the Lake |
|
— | 1988 |
No Score Yet | Drop-Out Mother |
|
— | 1988 |
No Score Yet | The Execution |
|
— | 1985 |
8% | Blame It on Rio |
|
— | 1984 |
No Score Yet | Don't Go to Sleep |
|
— | 1982 |
No Score Yet | The Day the Loving Stopped |
|
— | 1981 |
No Score Yet | The Last Married Couple in America |
|
— | 1980 |
No Score Yet | The Shadow Box |
|
— | 1980 |
50% | Chapter Two |
|
— | 1979 |
No Score Yet | Night Terror |
|
— | 1976 |
25% | Freebie and the Bean |
|
$8.8k | 1974 |
No Score Yet | Thursday's Game |
|
— | 1974 |
No Score Yet | Columbo: The Most Crucial Game |
|
— | 1972 |
No Score Yet | Rock Rock Rock! |
|
— | 1956 |
TV
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|
85% |
The Simpsons
1989
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
2 Broke Girls
2011-2017
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Melissa & Joey
2010-2015
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Doctors
2008
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
American Dad (target for inaccurate feed data)
2005
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Chew
2011-2018
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Dancing With the Stars
2005
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The View
1997
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Hot in Cleveland
2010-2015
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Talk
2010
|
|
|
72% |
Drop Dead Diva
2009-2014
|
|
|
72% |
Desperate Housewives
2004-2012
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Wendy Williams Show
2008-2020
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
'Til Death
2006-2010
|
|
|
40% |
Committed
2005
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Less Than Perfect
2002-2009
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Family Law
1999-2002
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
That '70s Show
1998-2006
|
|
|
19% |
Three Sisters
2001-2002
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Touched by an Angel
1994-2003
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Melrose Place
1992-1999
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Hogan Family
1986-1991
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Rhoda
1978
|
|
|
100% |
The Muppet Show
1976-1981
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
1970-1977
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Columbo
1968-2003
|
|
|
63% |
City
1990
|
|
|
Quotes from Valerie Harper's Characters
Rhoda Morgenstern Rousseau: | After the divorce I went back to my first love - food |
Rhoda Morgenstern Rousseau: | After the divorce I went back to my first love... food. |