Valerie Harper at an NBC event in January 2012. Photo credit: Angela Weiss/Getty Images
“At first I saw, ‘Oh, my God, three months to live.’ It’s not the whole truth,” Harper, 73, said. “Yes, that may be. But it could be six, it could be five years. You just don’t know.”
In her first TV interview about her incurable brain cancer, Harper went beyond the initial news that she had just three months to live.
Harper, the star of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Rhoda,” talked to Savannah Guthrie. Harper played Rhoda, the straight-talking friend who was unsinkable. The actress exhibits those same qualities in her life.
“Incurable is a tough word. So is terminal,” Harper said. But she added, “I’m not dying until I do.”
Even so, Harper said she was ready to say goodbye and that she was scared for her family.
Her form of cancer is incurable, rare and hard to detect; she is receiving chemotherapy. Harper revealed that she talks to her cancer, saying, “Listen, you little guys, you can live if you don’t kill me.”
Harper had finished her memoir, “I, Rhoda,” before receiving the terminal diagnosis in January.
She also will appear on Monday’s edition of “The Doctors” at 3 p.m. on WKMG-Channel 6. ABC’s “Good Morning America” said Harper will be a guest Tuesday. Harper visits CBS’ “The Talk” at 2 p.m. Wednesday. “Today” said it will have more of the Harper interview on Tuesday.