ContestsEvents

LISTEN LIVE

Actress Valerie Harper Dies

1970’s beloved actress Valerie Harper, who portrayed Rhoda Morgenstern on the The Mary Tyler Moore show, died today (8/30). She was 80. Harper, who collected four Emmy Awards and one…

Actress Valerie Harper Dies
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

1970's beloved actress Valerie Harper, who portrayed Rhoda Morgenstern on the The Mary Tyler Moore show, died today (8/30). She was 80.

Harper, who collected four Emmy Awards and one Golden Globe for her role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and then on her own spinoff series Rhoda, died after a courageous fight with cancer, her family told KABC-TV.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Valerie was told by doctors in January 2013 that she had leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, an incurable condition in which cancer cells spread into the membrane surrounding the brain. She was given as little as three months to live, but eight months later, she revealed that her cancer was near remission.

Harper is survived by her husband Tony Cacciotti and her daughter, Cristina.

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.