Actress Valerie Harper best known as wise-cracking neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern on television's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
Doctors told Harper, 73, on January 15 that she had as little as three months left to live after a battery of tests revealed she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis. The rare condition occurs when cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain.
Special: This Small Group of Doctors are Quietly Curing Cancer
Harper previously battled lung cancer in 2009 and discussed that challenge in her new memoir "I, Rhoda."
Aside from playing Moore's neighbor on the 1970s TV sitcom, Harper is best known as the star of her own TV series "Rhoda" and her Tony-nominated portrayal of Broadway legend Tallulah Bankhead in the play "Looped."
© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.