Valerie Harper, best known for her beloved role as Rhoda Morgenstern on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and her spin-off “Rhoda,” revealed that she has terminal brain cancer.
The 73-year-old actress, who battled lung cancer in 2009, told People magazine that she’s living every day to the fullest.
“I don’t think of dying,” she said. “I think of being here now.”
Harper underwent tests that revealed she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis – a rare condition that occurs when cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain, according to People.
“Confronting the truth will always set you free,” Harper said. “At least it has for me.”
She received the news on Jan. 15 and has been told by doctors that she could have as little as three months to live.
The actress treasures her career keepsakes, like her four Emmy Awards and scripts she saved from “Mary” and “Rhoda.”
Harper plans to stroll down memory lane with her remaining time.
“I’m just putting them in order,” she said, handing one particularly treasured “Mary” script.
“This is the very first one – the pilot. Look at how cute this is. There are notes like, ‘dinner with Betty [White].’”
Harper added: “They [the scripts] were in the garage and I just got them out. I don’t know what I should do with them.”
The brave actress admitted she has goes through bouts of extreme, and understandable, sadness on any given day.
Then she snaps out of it with a bowl of ice cream.
“I think ‘I don’t want to go.’ But I give myself room to grieve,” Harper told the mag. “I give myself the space to be sad or angry and then it passes and I can get back to eating ice cream, which I’ve been doing by the pint.”
Jason Bateman, who played Harper’s son on the 1986-91 sitcom “Valerie,” said the actress is a joy to be around.
“Valerie is someone that I’ve learned a great deal from. Not just comedically but also in her ability to put whomever approached her, or worked with her, completely at ease with a laugh and an energy that’s intoxicating,” Bateman told “Entertainment Tonight.”
“My thoughts and love go out to her and her family.”
Former “Mary Tyler Moore” co-star Ed Asner said he’s not convinced Harper is running out of time.
“Valerie Harper is a century plan and I have come to know her much better in my latter years and have every confidence in the world that she will shock the hell out of us and survive to keep functioning as the great talent and human that she is,” Asner said.
Harper promised she’d hang around as long as possible.
“Life,” she said, “is amazing. Live it to the fullest. Stay as long as you can.”