50 years ago tonight, 52M+ TV viewers tuned into a wedding

50 years ago? The average age of DL these days would rival that of Cocoon.

I was in attendance at that wedding.

Finished my homework early so I could attend.

It was a beautiful ceremony as I recall.

I don’t recall watching.

I recall watching. I was 10 years old, a month away from turning 11. My family gathered around the television to watch. I thought it was very funny as a 11 year old. Cloris Leachman deserved an Emmy for her guest appearance on the episode.

In Brenda's apartment, after Brenda invited her to stay in her apartment and sleep on an air mattress:

Phyllis : "You want me to sleep here ? On a balloon ? ?? What a sweet child. Thank you, but I made reservations at a small, but chic hotel in the city."

Phyllis, commenting on the crime wave in NYC in the 70s: "I'm afraid it's not my Gotham anymore."

I always wondered why 'little Donny' wasn't at his father's wedding that day (or was he - and I don't remember him?).

Joe was beautiful. Hated they broke them up.

I miss these shared moments of pre cable/streaming/internet. Only the Superbowl gets all Americans watching the same thing.

I still have not received a thank-you note for the wedding gift.

It was all the talk of my first-grade classroom.

Rhoda's Wedding is on Youtube.

R9, that's hilarious? If you don't mind, where'd you go to first grade?

That's hilarious. No question mark.

I remember the build up to this despite being only 9, but I wouldn’t have guessed that many people tuned in.

r10 Yes we know. Everything is on youtube.

The show really went off the rails when she was married. My mom and dad thought Groh was ugly as sin.

Rhoda taking the subway in her wedding dress was brilliant.

In my own little iconic TV history moments memory-bank, this episode still just seems somehow too contemporary to actually now be 50-years-old, wow!

I was only three when this aired, bit somehow I clearly remember Rhoda running the streets of New York in her wedding dress... I presume from reruns.

[quote]My mom and dad thought Groh was ugly as sin.

Are you the love child of Stevie Wonder and Helen Keller?

OP, Rhoda was born in December 1941 (she "always felt responsible for World War II" - remember?), so she was 32 in October 1974, not 34. Valerie Harper herself was born in August 1939 and was 35 on the night in question.

Little Ricky was born in January, 1953, not 1951. I Love Lucy did not premiere until October of '51.

Do try to get things right.

R20=Beth Jarrett

I was 18 when this aired and remember it well. It was a big deal. Like so many people, I loved Rhoda and thought of her as my TV best friend. I thought David Groh was sexy as hell, but that's because I like virile, hairy-chested types. So did Rhoda - another thing we had in common!

I recently re-watched the entire series, a painful exercise after Season 3. The first two seasons are wonderful. They should never have had Joe and Rhoda break up. The idea that they couldn't write a funny show about a married career woman in New York is ridiculous. Even so, Season 3 is OK. It had its moments.

When Season 4 opened with a skeletal Valerie Harper caked with so much fake-tan makeup she looked like an alien in a straight-to-cable horror movie, and they moved her out of that nice, spacious apartment into a tiny, claustrophobic set, Rhoda become torture to watch. If ever a TV show was ruined by terrible decisions, it's this one.

I was 25 when this aired (yes I'm older than dirt) but still watched eagerly with all my gay friends with the greatest of anticipation. We all LOVED David Groh! Sexy hairy-chested NY Jewish men like him weren't so common on TV back then.

But I have to agree, the series nosedived after the wedding, no fault of David Groh or any of the core cast. I'll never understand why that happened. Or why David Groh never did much of anything memorable again.

The courtship should have taken two seasons. Then in season three, they should have married.

As it happened, Rhoda and Joe married seven episodes after meeting.

I worked with Valerie Harper on a project in the 90s and she was absolutely delightful. Lovely woman.

R12, I grew up in an agribusiness factory town in the Midwest.

I remember this clearly because I felt sadly left out as I didn’t watch Rhoda yet.

I would only later discover the wonders of Joe’s hairy chest and the hilarity of Phyllis forgetting to pick up Rhoda for her own wedding.

[quote]I was only three when this aired, bit somehow I clearly remember Rhoda running the streets of New York in her wedding dress... I presume from reruns.

It was featured in the opening credits for several seasons.

Less than 5 minutes ago I watched a YouTube video visiting her grave.

Hollywood Graveyard with Arthur Dark. He has videos from all over the world visiting the burial sites of all kinds of celebrities.

It may sound morbid, but there’s something about the original music and his voiceovers that are very comforting.

I loved Valerie Harper.

She was royally screwed over her sitcom Valerie.

Also worked with Valerie about 20 years ago and found her to be one of the nicest, sweetest, most engaging and respectful actors in my long career in wardrobe.

Valerie was the star of the show and it was supposed to be centered around her but then Jason Bateman became hugely popular with young viewers and the breakout star, and the writers began making him the focus of the episodes. A story that's happened a million times. Valerie was, quite understandably, pissed off.

Groh wasn't just unattractive, he was unappealing. On the TV Guide cover, he was drawn to look like an ape.

How aware do we think David Groh was of the carnal excitement he generated among homosexuals, established gays and gaylings alike?

R29, you should start a thread about your encounters with the people you dressed and what it was like doing your job on a daily basis. I think it would be interesting.

That was a rare slip for Al Hirschfeld.

I would never have been able to identify David Groh looking at it if it wasn't captioned. Even the Valerie caricature isn't great.

What kind of name is Groh, where’s it originate from?

I always found poor man's James Caan more attractive than rich man's David Groh.

Can't we love them both, r36?

OP, everyone stayed home Monday nights. And Tues, Wed, Thrus, and sometimes Fri and Sat.

[quote]As it happened, Rhoda and Joe married seven episodes after meeting.

They met in the first episode! You're trying to establish a spinoff of a successful show centered around a lovable, single character and her eccentric family. What on earth made the writers decide to also introduce not only a love interest, but the man she would soon marry in the pilot as well?

The later episodes with Rhoda finding her way in the city as a single woman should have been the earlier episodes and the Joe arc should have come towards the end of the series.

Oh, my God, that wedding! Poor Rhoda, running around New York city in her wedding gown! Loved it! I was embittered by the divorce as I was embittered by divorce that seemed to spread like poison ivy throughout my circle of family and friends in real life at the same time. The last time I saw Groh was on "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" in a thankless role as a jerk who lost a fight to Gil Gerard. I didn't want to hate Joe. He was like the losing end of that song "Her Town Too".

Damn, you, Phyllis!

R30, wrong show.

Groh had a memorable run playing against type on General Hospital in the 1980s.

Think of everything that went into this one, flawless epsiode. Everything from the storyline to the dialogue to the acting - nearly perfect. Most sitcoms back then (especially on CBS with the Norman Lear comedies and the MTM comedies) were like this: top shelf.

50 years later, and look at what passes for 'hit' sitcoms now. Horribly developed characters, awful storylines, terrible actors and middle-school writing. I DVR'd two new sitcoms on CBS last week ('Poppa's House' and 'Georgie and Mandy's First Wedding') and I couldn't make it past the first commercial break.

We've fallen so far.

JFC, that’s a hard looking 34 in OPs pic.

I wonder if the writers or producers or Valerie felt it was unbecoming and/or not funny to have a 35-year-old woman gallivanting around NYC unmarried? Obviously, it was still working for MTM in Minneapolis but maybe they felt Valerie/Rhoda would somehow appear pathetic?

This is just my guess with nothing to back it up, of course.

R44 People were much trimmer but aged up real fast when everyone smoked.

R45 Don't forget they had a widowed, single 'Phyllis' (who was supposed to be 40 in the show even though Leachman was 50 when they had her birthday episode in Season 2) prancing around San Francisco back then. One thing I recall - in the two seasons 'Phyllis' was on CBS (1975 - 77), not once did she have a boyfriend or a romance of any kind.

They should have had Rhoda move back to NYC and have her take that first season to settle in an date some schmoes and bros, including going on a date with Joe that just doesn't quite work out even though there is an attraction. Then, towards the end of the first year, she meets a guy who seems like he should be "the one" and then Season Two picks up with Rhoda and Serious Guy moving along and getting engaged and bit by bit we start seeing hints that THIS isn't the guy for her. And, maybe Joe keeps popping back into her life here and there (maybe Joe and the Serious Boyfriend are pals). Season Two ends with Rhoda's wedding to Serious Guy and....she backs out at the last minute.

Season Three opens with everyone a bit annoyed with Rhoda (on paper, Serious Guy looks good) but she starts seeing Joe and they eventually elope.

Also: Rhoda was in serious need of GAYS! Rhoda was a design person living in Manhattan in the 70s! She should have had a gay male 'Rhoda' as a best friend!

"Phyllis" the series just made zero sense...it wasn't well thought out. Having her live with in-laws was dumb. If they wanted her in San Francisco, they should have had her successful gay brother living there, with his partner and the partner's mom who can't stand Phyllis. SPARKS!

And, why not have Phyllis date, desperate to trap herself a new Lars? That would have been very funny, Phyllis on disastrous dates!

The early deaths of co-stars Barbara Colby and Judith Lowry didn't exactly help PHYLLIS' success. The series was just doomed. But I kind of liked it, at least the first several episodes.

Though I enjoyed all five seasons of the series, I'm the rare fan who enjoyed the last few seasons the best (when she moved into her smaller apartment). I enjoyed season three after the mid-season, when they finally got rid of the unlikeable 'Sally' (played by a miscast Ann Meara).

Season 4 struggled, now that she was 'officially divorced'. Ida returned, and that leveled out the show. I remember there were rumors that CBS was trying to get Leachman to join the show in her 'Phyllis' character as a supporting cast member (she was going to move into an apartment in Rhoda's building) now that Leachman's series was canceled in March, 1977, but the deal fell apart when Leachman decided against playing 'second banana' once again. A script bringing her back to Manhattan and meeting up with Rhoda (she ends up staying overnight with her) was written, but never filmed.

Weren't there two different guys in Rhoda's life in the final season, played by Ray Buktenica and Ron Silver (who I thought were too much alike and neither very funny).

Valerie and Julie Kavner were always too skinny for the Sara Lee jokes.

[quote]People were much trimmer but aged up real fast when everyone smoked.

Valerie Harper was never a smoker.

[quote]Also: Rhoda was in serious need of GAYS! Rhoda was a design person living in Manhattan in the 70s! She should have had a gay male 'Rhoda' as a best friend!

Unfortunately back in those days you couldn't have a gay character as a regular on a tv show. Even Paul Lynde, of all people, had to play "straight." What a different world.

And yes, there were scenarios where it was ridiculous that there would be no gay men around. Rhoda was an interior designer in NYC and no gay men? So stupid, but those were the times.

I agree that they rushed the marriage of Rhoda to Joe. They should have had them dating and a longer term engagement for the sake of the show. The quick marriage took the air out of the show.

Johnny Venture

Iirc Rhoda meets Joe during the MTM show but we only hear about him on a phone call because Rhoda's moved back to NY and Mary's also dating someone named Joe - Ted Bessel playing a womanizing jerk.

R58 No, she never met him in the MTM show.

Rhoda met Joe in episode one of her series, when he drops 'Donnie' off to Brenda's apartment to babysit him. The story goes that Joe has an account at the bank Brenda works in as a teller, and he asked Brenda a few weeks earlier to babysit his kid on Friday and Saturday nights for extra money (he's recently divorced and just started dating). So on this occasion, he dropped Donnie off before he went out on his date and meets Rhoda - and she gives him her phone number, so they can meet up again. Once he leaves, she can't believe how confident she was with him (it's the new 'Rhoda' she tells Brenda) and thanks 'Ms. Magazine'. This sets the tone for the new series - Rhoda is now the 'confident' heroine, the 'Mary' of the show. Brenda is the new 'Rhoda' lacking self-confidence.

At the end of that episode (or maybe the next one) she calls Mary on the phone and tells her about her new boyfriend. Ted Bessell's character didn't come along until the last season of 'MTM' (1976-77).

TRIVIA: Rhoda meets Joe's first wife in one episode, and she's played by a very young Joan Van Ark who was only 31 at the time.

[quote]Mary's also dating someone named Joe - Ted Bessel playing a womanizing jerk.

Ted Bessell played a character named Joe Waner in two episodes of Mary Tyler Moore Show in November and December1975.

Rhoda left MTM show in September 1974.

Ironically, in the first MTM Show episode that Ted Bessell is on, there's also a phone call between Mary and Rhoda where they talk about their respective Joes.

"New York, this is your last chance..."

I had a bad puberty. It lasted...

David Groh and the entire concept of Joe was wrong for our Rhoda. They needed a better actor who had chemistry with Harper. Rhoda would have gone more for a Woody Allen type.

Rhoda should have married your Woody Allen type and had a steamy affair with testosterone-laden David Groh.

I recently rewatched the whole series on YouTube (I watched it when it first came on). And I can’t believe I’m saying this but I don’t think it’s aged well.

Watching it now I can see why Joe dumped Rhoda. She was so insecure, neurotic, and never stopped putting herself down around him. At the same time she was always acting so fake sympathetic but really smug and superior to Brenda about her weight. They were both so messed up because of their insufferable gnome mother Ida and it was played for laughs instead of the emotional abuse it really was.

I remember when the series was first on I stopped watching it in the third season. I just couldn’t take all the forced humor, weird guys, parent angst, and that stupid costume shop where somehow Rhoda turned into a costume maker.

But Rhoda met a guy she was interested in who was a customer at the shop, he was played by Judd Hirsch and I thought they had chemistry.

I am a millenial and didn't grow up with this show being in reruns, so I just caught it on youtube a couple of years ago. When I first watched I though "joe" was hot, but now he looks ugly as hell. LOL. Either way he is very masculine and looked very 1970s, so I understand the appeal.

In Wisconsin they gave us some cheese.

Sue Ann Nivens would have creamed her panties over Joe.

David Grogh was good on General Hospital as DL Brock, who abused Bobbi Spencer, caused the death of fan fave Leslie Webber, and turned Terri Brock into a basket case.

He was really over the top. Degrading Ginny Blake (Judy Chapman): "Yer a WHORE lady! Ya WALLOW I'm it!"

Sue Ann wore panties?

The dress is shot. I’ll never be able to wear it again!

I forgive you. But if I were you I’d get my tail outta here before Rhoda gets here

I may have overstepped.

Now I know how Valerie Harper feels.

I was 15 and remember watching this. I always thought when I graduated from college I would get a good job in a big city and have a studio apartment just like Brenda's.

Though there were no gay characters on PHYLLIS it bore the heavy camp stamp of gay writers, more than any other MTM show.

No one has mentioned the single most important guest star on "Rhoda" yet? (Go to 1:46.)

AWWWWWWWWWWWW...............................!!!!!!!!

[quote] But Rhoda met a guy she was interested in who was a customer at the shop, he was played by Judd Hirsch and I thought they had chemistry.

Hirsch auditioned for the role of Joe when the producers were casting the supporting characters. Harper had remembered him from a stage play she had seen recently and asked the producers to reach out to him and see if he'd be interested in auditioning for the role, and he jumped at the chance. Harper said he was one of the very first actors to audition and they should have stopped with him and offered him the role the same day because they had excellent chemistry together. However, they ended up auditioning dozens of actors who booked that week, and by the time they made a decision to offer Hirsch the role weeks later, he turned them down - he had just accepted an offer to do a B'way play, and wouldn't back out on the show. They then went with their second choice David Groh, who also auditioned for the B'way play and lost out to Hirsch.

Clearly, there were a finite number of hot hairy-chested Jewish actors in 1974.

I recall watching it. I was eleven, and I remember Rhoda running around the West Side and on the subway in her wedding gown. Nancy Walker was great.

And who can forget Carlton your doorman?

One of the funniest episodes ever was when they cast Ruth Gordon as Carleton's mother. Rhoda had gotten Carleton fired, and his mother came to visit Rhoda to see if she could talk to the building manager to hire him back (Rhoda does). Those five minutes watching Harper and Gordon on the screen having a conversation was priceless.

Some trivia: It's been said (but not confirmed) that the same set which was used for the first apartment for Joe and Rhoda on 'Rhoda' was modified a little (the outdoor balcony was removed) and used as Jerry's apartment on 'Seinfeld', 11 years after 'Rhoda' went off the air.

Vivian was terrible on Rhoda. I know she was ill, but it was watching Ethel or Viv all over.

More Trivia: An offer was made to Vance and David White to join the cast of the show, playing Rhoda's neighbors (and causing friction with her parents). White wanted to join the series (his last series was 'Bewitched' which ended three years earlier) but Vance passed on the offer - she had already been diagnosed with cancer a few years earlier, and didn't think she could commit to a weekly series. Same reason why she had to say no to joining "Here's Lucy" in the final two seasons (1972-74).

Perhaps the consensus now is that having Rhoda get married so soon was a mistake, but audiences at the time seemed to like it. Season 1, with the marriage quite early on, was the #6-rated show for the year. Season 2, when Rhoda and Joe were married the entire year, was #7. There was apparently a lot of angry mail when they split up, and the ratings never recovered.

R35 It's a German surname. His bio says his parents, Benjamin and Mildred Groh were Jewish American.

I remember in an interview with Harper after Groh died, she told the story of Judd Hirsch being first choice for 'Joe' (but quickly added that they were thrilled with Groh taking the part). She did say Hirsch returned in the fourth season (1977-78) as her love interest, and they did a few episodes with him making a guest appearance. The writers flirted with the idea of the two of them getting married at the end of the season, and end the series. CBS still had Harper under contract for one more season (the fifth) so they nixed the idea - and 'Rhoda' returned for another season in 1978-79.

That's interesting about Judd Hirsch. There's something much more intense about him than there is about David Groh. When I recently rewatched the series, Joe came across as kind of a pushover to me because of the way Rhoda was always picking arguments with him and he was pretty easy going. Not that there was anything wrong with him but it was just something I noticed while I was binge watching that had never really occurred to me before. Just makes me wonder if Judd Hirsch would have come across differently from Groh.

I also recently watched a show reunion from the 90's and Harper and Groh really seemed fond of each other. It's just ironic that by the time the show ditched Joe I was on his side lol.

Actually, I thought Groh's Joe would be the type to beat the shit out of Rhoda.

Joe didn't even want to get married. But he did.

Nobody cares.

Joe might have worked out if they had given Rhoda a fun job environment to center the show on like the Mary Tyler Moore Show. MTM had a nice balance (at least in the first few seasons) of Mary's life at WJM and Mary's home life with Rhoda and Phyllis. Rhoda could have done the same if they had given her a decent job with fun supporting characters so they could have done "work episodes" and "home episodes" with Joe (once in awhile) and Brenda and Ida.

Or, they should have cast a funnier Joe. David Groh was hot but he wasn't a comedic actor.

Rhoda was a supporting character as was Phyllis. Once they put Julie Kavner into the Rhoda role and Harper into the MTM role, things were bound to fail.

R91 An odd kind of failure....huge ratings for the first couple years, ultimately running 5 seasons, winning several Emmy Awards, and made money in syndication.

Now, Phyllis, was a failure....sadly. Though remembered with some kindness because people love the character.

Who'd have thunk that Julie Kavner would end up worth about $30 million?

Julie Kavner lives on Long Island and records her Simpsons lines over the phone. Then she gets a nice check for $300,000. Per episode.

She has the best job in the world.

Harper said in her memoir (2013) that she let CBS know the fifth season of the series was the last for her. She let them know in the spring of 1978 when season four wrapped, so that the cast and crew would have ample time to move into something else . She also figured the writers could give a proper ending to the series (as they did MTM), since her character was a TV favorite for nearly a decade.

Once the season started production, CBS offered Harper a huge raise if she was to sign on for one more season (a sixth), but she had enough. The show suffered in the 8 pm Saturday timeslot, and the series was canceled after nine episodes aired (13 were finished, and the show was on 'winter break' when she got the news it was over - she said she was thrilled to get the news, as she didn't want to finish the season with eleven more episodes).

Though she doesn't address this in the book, it was rumored the network was working on spinning off Julie Kavner into her own series, with Ray Buktenica and Nancy Walker joining her - which is why they were focusing on 'Brenda' and had her engaged in the beginning of the season. The plan was supposed to have Brenda's wedding during February sweeps, and then do a 'series arc' for the rest of February to spin off 'Brenda' into wedded bliss, with Nancy Walker interfering. 'Rhoda' was to wrap the next two months. The spin-off never happened.

[quote]Or, they should have cast a funnier Joe. David Groh was hot but he wasn't a comedic actor.

He was OK as straight man to Rhoda's crazy, funny neuroticism. Judd Hirsch would have been better, though.

Way back when, I thought David Groh was sexy as hell. On recent re-watch I still think he's hot, but maybe not quite as much. To me, now, Judd Hirsch is much hotter because he seems more intelligent and has a great dry wit - not just on Rhoda but generally in the characters he tends to play. I'm talking about their on-screen personas, by the way. I don't mean to say that David Groh wasn't smart or funny IRL.

Also, Hirsch looks like he would be an absolute tiger in bed despite not being objectively as handsome as Groh.

David Groh did a fine job as Joe. But learning that Judd Hirsch was also up for the role, and seeing what Hirsch did with Taxi and other roles, I'd say Hirsch would have been even better as Joe.

Julie Kavner had better be worth more than $30m....after 30 years of Simpsons paychecks it should be over $100m if she's done some smart investing.

And, a 'Brenda' show would have flopped so hard. Kavner is great but she's a classic 2nd banana.

I've always loved Julie Kavner. She was also great on both of Tracey Ullman's shows. Love the sketches with her and Tracy as the two Jewesses in Boca Raton.

In the mid-80s, Groh starred in an of-Broadway show called 'Be Happy For Me', in which most of his time on stage he was in bikini briefs, as his scenes took place at the side of a swimming pool. I'm sure the gay men kept the box office open.

I'm surprised that Ray Buktenica wasn't offered the part of Joe. He and Joyce DeWitt were THE couple in LaLa land in the late 1970s, think Brangelina but BIGGER! The paparazzi was constantly hounding them and it took a toll on their relationship. That might have been why the Brenda series never took off, as Ray probably wanted to step out of the public eye after being in a publicity hurricane as one half of the duo the press and public lovingly referred to as DeWitenica!

It would kill you to link a pic, r100?

Seeing it more recently, I was surpised that Harold Gould was so attractive.

skimpy

Benny was an awful character devoid of personality.

And Ida ruined every episode she was on for me because of her nastiness and even worse, the show treated her like she was a femme fatale or something. It was ludicrous. Couldn’t stand her or her fake red helmet hair. Martin was whipped, no wonder he left her.

R59- Old Rhoda the character she played on MTM was never even close to being as insecure and lacking confidence as her sister Brenda was on Rhoda.

Rhoda was treated like an old maid for not being married, but she was only 34 when she married Joe?

It's strange how ridiculous we view getting married at 19 or 20 these days compared to how common it was even 50 years ago.

R105- Ida had the same hairdo as Zira in Planet Of The Apes

R106, Early Rhoda on MTM was absolutely as insecure as Brenda. She even had lines like "I have to lose 20 pounds in one hour".

I think a big difference between the early Rhoda character and Brenda is Rhoda had great style, even if she was terribly insecure. Brenda was always kind of lumpen and dumpy (and I love Julie Kavner, she just played what was written).

Brenda was never a style maven the way Rhoda was, but her outfits definitely improved over the series as she lost weight and the character became more confident, mirroring Rhoda’s progress on the MTM Show. By season four she was thin, had grown her hair out, and was rather attractive IMO.

r107 it's such a shift. It was totally normal for people to get married at 18, start having kids at 19 and they were grandparents at 40. These days only white trash or batshit fundie Christians do that. It's considered weird and much too young by regular, normal people.

Rhoda did not have great style in the early episodes. She was a schlub.

In one of her interviews Groh did before he died, he said Harper felt terrible for the actor when he was let go from the series. A week earlier, he had put a deposit down on his 'dream house' outside of LA, not knowing the plan that he was being written out of the series. Harper convinced the producers and CBS to write him in most of the episodes as possible in the beginning of the season (I believe his last episode was in December, the 'New Year's Eve' episode in Rhoda's apartment), so he would get paid his full salary for the first half of the season (he wasn't under contract with the network, so he got paid for each episode he was in). He was forever grateful to her for doing this - it helped him financially.

WILL: Grace, in the real world, women ask men all the time. Rhoda asked Joe.

GRACE: No, she didn't.

WILL: Yes, she did. She kept waiting for him to pop the question, and when he finally did, it was, "Do you wanna live together?" So she looked him right in the eye and said, [IMITATING RHODA] "Ok, Joe. I wanna be married."

GRACE: Wow. You will use any excuse to do a Rhoda impression.

WILL: Grace, you love him. You wanna marry him. So ask him.

GRACE: You're right. I should. I will! I'm gonna ask him. I mean, it makes total sense. I was the one who was gonna end up paying for the ring anyway. Oh, my God! This is so exciting!

WILL: I know! [AS RHODA] I gotta call my sister Brenda and tell her the news.

I wonder when Julie became so reclusive. Back in the Rhoda days, she was a frequent guest on talk shows and other events.

Even during the Tracey Ullman and early Simpsons days she was still high profile. I love "This is My Life".

Then I remember when they had the Simpsons cast on Actors Studio, she left a few minutes into it.

Who is the cute guy next to her who shakes her head when she wins?

It looks like a young Gary Shandling in that clip. She's very awkward in a setting such as that where she has to address a whole audience.

She was pretty good in Awakenings.

Everything I've read about Julie Kavner seems to indicate she has always been a very private and introverted person. She played the publicity game as an ingenue, starting out, when you HAVE to play that game in order to move ahead in the career but once she had "fuck you" money she just stopped.

Good for her.

Five years ago, when Harper was facing her 'sad last days' the month she was on her death bed, it was said that she and her husband had run out of money for 'around the clock care / comfort'. Her husband went public with their situation, and I believe he was starting a 'Go Fund Me' page - until a 'silent angel' stepped up and paid for all of Harper's care going forward, and all her medical debt she has accrued. To this day, that person has not been identified, but she is to be believed (by very good sources) to be Kavner.

Interestingly, Kavner never made a public statement when Harper died.

Why was Harper broke?

Her treatment was expensive and apparently not covered by health insurance (it was rather new and experimental, and kept her alive an additional 6 years). They went through their savings over those six years, paying out of pocket.

I worked on a project with Julie in the late 1990s and found her to be just wonderful. Shy but not awkward and very gracious and easy-going. I just loved her.

Btw, I'm also r29.

Valerie Harper's story is sad in so many ways, mainly because it illustrates how fucked up our healthcare system is in this idiotic country. A successful, well paid person goes broke trying to stay alive and has to be rescued by someone with huge assets.

True r125. We can't have universal healthcare in this country because we're so afraid that one single person we don't like will get it. That's basically what it comes down to.

Julie gave a rare interview to promote Rhoda Season 1 on DVD, and she talked about how wonderful it was to work with Valerie and also singled out Harold Gould and Nancy Walker.

R126 No....we don't have universal health care in this country because very large corporations spend millions of dollars to make sure that our legislative figures don't pass laws creating it.

Tiny Tim's wedding was better.

R125 and R126, if indeed Harper’s therapy was experimental, as R123 says, then it's likely that no universal health insurance program would cover it, either. All insurance plans – whether private or government – limit what they cover in some way. In fact, Medicare, which sets the standard for all health insurance in the US, is rather generous by international standards in terms of what it will pay for.

I, too, think we need universal health insurance, but it’s not a panacea.

Experimental therapy is often paid for by the company that makes the experimental drug. I guess that wasn’t possible in this case.

I do know that Valerie was also undergoing daily acupuncture as part of her therapy.

Is Julie a carpet muncher?

She had a male partner/husband for decades until he died. David Davis, a producer on Rhoda and other shows.

Julie did a play with Viola Davis years back.

R125, that’s so true. And Valerie Harper was such a wonderful human being. She was very involved with an organization that was going to end hunger in America. I remember how much work and energy she put into that mission… and, according to the plans her organization had it seemed very doable. Yet here we are all these years later with so many “Christians” working so hard to make sure that Americans never take care of their neighbors who need the most. Jesus would be appalled.